
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

BV ' 46"g } 

Chap. Copyright No. 

1 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



IN HIS STEPS 



A Book for Young Christians 



/ BY 

J. R. MILLER, D.D. 

Author of "Week-Day Religion," "Home-Making," 
"Silent Times," etc. 



"Wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the 
earth, there have I coveted to set my foot too."— Mr. 
Standfast. 



PHILADELPHIA 
THE WESTMINSTER -ERESS 

«97 




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RECEIVED 



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Copyright, 1885, 1897, by The Trustees of 

The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- 
School Work 



PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 



THE object of this little book is to help 
young Christians as they begin their new 
life. It contains merely a few suggestions 
and counsels by an older brother who has 
gone a little farther on the way, who has 
experienced some of the difficulties and 
dangers and learned a little of the help 
Christ is ready to give to those who will 
accept it. 

This book has been prepared specially to 
meet the desire of pastors and sessions who 
wish to give to those whom they receive into 
the Church a suitable manual of instruction 
and help. Thousands of copies of the 
former edition have been given in this way. 
The book may be found suitable also for 
teachers to put into the hands of young 
people in their classes who wish to begin the 
Christian life. 

This new edition contains much new 
matter, and the whole book has been care- 
fully revised. 

J. R. M. 
Philadelphia. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. — Uniting with the Church . . 7 

II. — Beginning Well 14 

III. — The Christian Life: The Ideal 20 

IV. — Living for God: Consecration 27 

V. — Meeting Temptation: Conflict 36 

VI. — Working for Christ : Service . 44 

VII. — Helps: Personal Prayer ... 53 

VIII.— Helps : The Bible 64 

IX.— Helps : The Church and its Ser- 
vices 75 

X. — Some of the Duties 90 

XI. — Growing in One's Place : Provi- 
dence 97 

XII.— Preparation for Trial .... 104 

5 



IN HIS STEPS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Uniting with the Church. 

XO unite with the church is to take one's 
place among the followers of the Master. 
It is a public act. It is a confession of Christ 
before men. It is not a profession of superior 
saintliness ; on the other hand, it is a distinct 
avowal of personal sinfulness and unworthi- 
ness. Those who seek admission into the 
church come as sinners, needing and accept- 
ing the mercy of God and depending upon 
the atonement of Christ for the forgiveness 
of their sins. 

They come confessing Christ. They have 
heard his call, " Follow me," and have re- 
sponded. Uniting with the church is taking 
a place among the friends of Christ ; it is 
coming out from the world to be on Christ's 
side. There are but two parties among men. 
" He that is not with me is against me," said 
Jesus. The church consists of those who 



In His Steps. 

are with Christ. This suggests one of the 
reasons why those who love Christ should 
take their place in the church. By so doing 
they declare to all the world where they 
stand and cast all the influence of their life 
and example on Christ's side. 

Secret discipleship fails at this point. 
However much we may love Christ, how- 
ever intimate our fellowship with him may 
be, however sincere our friendship for him, 
he misses in us the outspoken loyalty of a 
true confession which proclaims his name in 
its every breath. Secret discipleship hides 
its light and fails to honor Christ before men. 

Uniting with the church is a declaration 
that one has joined the company of Christ's 
disciples. Disciples are learners. Young 
Christians have entered the school of Christ 
— have only entered it. They do not profess 
to have attained perfection ; they profess 
only to have begun the Christian life. 

Jesus took his first disciples into his school 
and for three years taught and trained them. 
He made known to them the great truths of 
Christianity which he had come to reveal — 
truths about God, about his kingdom on the 
earth, about duty. Then he taught them 
how to live. 

In like manner the disciples of Christ who 
enter his church now become his scholars. 
They may be very ignorant, but this is no 



Uniting with the Church. 

reason why they should not be admitted to 
the school of the great Teacher. They 
should not wait to increase their knowledge 
before they become his disciples. The very 
purpose of a school is to take those who 
are ignorant and teach them. 

But one condition of admittance as a 
scholar is, a desire to learn and a readiness 
to be taught. Of the first Christians, after 
the day of Pentecost, it is given as one of the 
marks of new life in them, that they con- 
tinued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching. 
They were eager to learn all they could hear 
about Jesus, and therefore they lost no oppor- 
tunity of listening to the teaching of the 
apostles, who had been with Jesus for three 
years. Young Christians should always be 
eager to learn. This is one of the objects 
of church membership. 

In different ways is this instruction given. 
A Christian home should be a school of 
Christ. The Christian mother is Christ's first 
apostle to her children who should learn 
from her lips the great lessons of life. Home 
teachings come first when the mind is open 
and the heart is tender and sensitive to 
impressions. The Sabbath-school is designed 
to do an important work in teaching the 
young the truths of Christianity. The pastor 
is a teacher. He has been trained to be an 
instructor of others in knowledge of God 



In His Steps. 

and in the way of life. He expounds the 
vital truths of the Scriptures and also inter- 
prets them for daily life. The private read- 
ing of the Bible is another way of learning 
the things we need to know to make us wise 
unto salvation. 

But knowledge is not all. Even Bible 
knowledge is not all, does not alone make 
one a good Christian. One might know all the 
great facts and doctrines of the word of God, 
might be a profound Bible scholar and a 
wise theologian, and yet not be an advanced 
or even a growing Christian. We are to 
learn to live Christ as well as to know the 
truths about Christ. Jesus in his teachings 
makes a great deal of obedience. We are his 
friends if we do whatsoever he commands 
us. We are to learn to be patient, meek, 
gentle, long-suffering, compassionate. We 
are to learn to be humble, kindly-affectioned, 
unselfish, truthful, sincere. 

Young Christians enter Christ's school to 
be trained in all the qualities which make up 
the true Christian life. Jesus is not only the 
teacher, — his life is the text-book which we 
are to study. Part of his mission to this 
world was to show us in himself what a true 
and complete human life is. He was sinless, 
and he realized the full beauty of obedience 
to the divine will. We are to look to his life 
to learn just how to live, the kind of charac- 



I 



Uniting with the Church. 

ter we are to seek to have, the meaning of 
the lessons which his words set for us. We 
are in the school of Christ to be trained in 
all Christian life and duty. 

The lessons the Bible sets for us we are to 
learn to live out in common life. Every 
word of Christ sets a copy for us, as it were, 
and we are to learn to write it in fair and 
beautiful lines. For example, it is not 
enough to learn from the Beatitudes that 
certain qualities are praised by the great 
Teacher ; we are to get the Beatitudes into 
our own life as quickly and as perfectly as 
we can. So of all the teachings of Christ — 
they are not for knowing merely, as one 
learns the fine sayings of favorite literary 
writers ; they are for living. They are to 
become lamps to our feet and lights to our 
path, and they are to be wrought into the 
web of our character. The object of the 
church in this training of disciples is well 
expressed in the words of St. Paul, — " for the 
perfecting of the saints, unto the work of 
ministering, unto the building up of the body 
of Christ : till we all attain unto the unity of 
the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." 

This thought of the church as the school 
of Christ and of young Christians as enter- 



In His Steps. 

ing the school, is very suggestive. We are 
not to expect perfection, but we have a right 
to expect an increasing knowledge of spiritual 
things and also spiritual growth in all the 
qualities which belong to Christian character. 
We should become more patient, more lov- 
ing, more unselfish, more helpful, more faith- 
ful in all duty, more like Christ. 

Uniting with the church brings its duties. 
It allies us with Christ and makes us co- 
workers with him. We are not to think 
merely of what the church may do for us, 
but also of what we may do for the church. 
Church loyalty is a mark of true and whole- 
some Christian life. One need not be a 
narrow sectarian to be a good church mem- 
ber ; but one will always be the better Chris- 
tian for being entirely devoted to his own 
church and enthusiastic in all its life and 
work. Anything that weakens a man's 
loyalty to his own particular church hurts 
his spiritual life and lessens his usefulness 
as a Christian. 

In many ways church members may serve 
their church. They should be interested in 
all its work of saving souls and promoting 
the cause of Christ. They should regularly 
attend its services. They should contribute 
for its support. They should study its inter- 
ests and seek in every way to extend its in- 
fluence. They should keep the church in 



Uniting with the Church. 

their prayers, daily making supplication for 
it. They should bring to it always the best 
they have to bring, not of gifts and service 
only, but also of love and personal help- 
fulness. 

It is a high privilege to be a church mem- 
ber, and one who has such honor should 
seek to be worthy of it, as the church is the 
body of Christ in this world. 



13 



CHAPTER II. 

Beginning Well. 

A GOOD beginning is half. Many people 
spend the latter part of their years in cor- 
recting the errors of the earlier part, and by 
the time they are ready to live the end has 
come. A good beginning at once turns all 
the energies into the right channels. No 
golden years need then be wasted in unlearn- 
ing false lessons, in revising unwise or im- 
practicable plans or in retracing one's steps. 
Many a career of brilliant possibilities is 
marred by a wrong beginning. There are 
mistakes of early life which men never get 
over. A bad foundation has caused the 
wreck of many a noble building. Inade- 
quate preparation for a business or a calling 
leads, at the best, to impaired success, and 
most frequently results, in the end, in utter 
failure. 

These principles apply in Christian life. 
It is of the utmost importance that we start 
well. Many Christians walk in doubt and 
shadow all their days, never entering into 
rich joy and peace, because at the beginning 
14 



Beginning Well. 

they failed to realize the blessedness of the 
privileges to which, as children of God, they 
are entitled. Many others never attain any- 
thing noble and beautiful in Christian life 
and character because at the beginning they 
did not wholly disentangle themselves from 
their old life and fully consecrate themselves 
to Christ. 

A good beginning, therefore, involves two 
things — clearness and definiteness of aim, 
with intelligent views of the nature and 
meaning of the Christian life; and com- 
pleteness of consecration. 

Many men fail in life because they have 
no settled purpose, no well-defined plan. 
They have no goal set before them which 
with all their energies they strive to reach. 
There is in their mind no clear and distinct 
idea toward which they struggle. They 
merely drift on the current, and are borne 
by it whithersoever it flows. They are not 
masters in life, but poor slaves. They con- 
quer nothing, but are the mere creatures of 
circumstance. Such lives, however, are 
unworthy of intelligent beings endowed with 
immortal powers, and they never reach any 
high degree of nobleness or success. 

No sculptor touches the marble until he 

has in his mind a definite conception of his 

work as it will appear when it has been 

finished. He sees a vision before him of a 

i5 



In His Steps. 

very lovely form, and then sets to work to 
fashion the vision in the stone. No builder 
begins to erect a house until a complete plan 
embracing every detail has been adopted. 
Before he strikes a stroke he knows precisely 
what the finished structure will be. No one 
would cut into a web of rich and costly cloth 
until he had before him the pattern of the 
garment he would make. In all work on 
material things men have definite aims before 
they begin their work, and know precisely 
what they intend to produce. 

But in life itself and in living, in charac- 
ter-building, in destiny-shaping, many fail 
to exercise such wisdom. Multitudes never 
give one earnest thought to such questions 
as these: "What is my life? For what pur- 
pose is it intrusted to me ? What ought I 
to do with it ? What should be the great aim 
of my existence ? What should I strive to 
be and to do?" Thousands live aimlessly, 
having no true sense of the responsibility of 
living, never forming an earnest, resolute 
purpose to rise to any noble height or to 
achieve any worthy thing. An immortal life 
should have its aim ever shining before it 
bright and clear as a star in the heavens. 
To grow up as a plant — without thought or 
purpose — is well enough for a plant, and God 
clothes it and shapes it into marvelous beauty; 
but men with undying souls and measureless 
16 



Beginning Well. 

possibilities should have a purpose worthy 
of their immortality, and should strive with 
heroic energy to attain it. 

In entering the Christian life there should 
be a clear aim. We should know definitely 
what this new life is which we have now to 
live. With but vague ideas of the meaning 
of a Christian life — its ideal, its requirements, 
its privileges, the duties which belong to it — 
no one can begin well. All is vague and 
misty, and while it is so we cannot put any 
purpose or energy into our life. We need to 
understand the new relations into which we 
come as children of God, in order that we 
may realize the privileges of our position. 
We need to have a clear conception of the 
final aim of all Christian attainment and 
aspiration, in order that we may strive 
toward it. We need to know what is re- 
quired of a Christian toward his God and 
toward his fellow men, in order that we may 
faithfully and intelligently perform all our 
duties. We need to know the conditions of 
Christian life — its needs, its dangers — in 
order that we may avail ourselves of the 
necessary helps provided for us. Thus a 
clear and intelligent aim is essential in be- 
ginning well as a Christian. 

The other essential thing in beginning well 
is the devotion and consecration of ourselves 
to the new life we have chosen. A good 
2 17 



In His Steps. 

ideal is not enough. One may aim an arrow 
with perfect accuracy, but the bow must also 
be drawn and the cord let fly if the arrow is 
to reach the mark. A vision in the brain is 
not enough for the sculptor : he must hew 
and chisel the marble into the form of his 
vision. The architect's plan is only a pic- 
ture, and there must be toil and cost until 
the building stands complete in its noble 
beauty. 

A good aim is not all of a Christian life. 
It is nothing more than an empty dream 
unless it be wrought out in Godlike character 
and Christlike ministry. Every earnest Chris- 
tian looks much at the glorious Master, and, 
as he looks, visions of wondrous beauty fill 
his soul — glimpses of the loveliness of Christ ; 
and he must then seek with patient yet in- 
tense purpose to reproduce these heavenly 
visions in his own life. 

Many people have sublimest aspirations 
and wishes — and even form their aspirations 
and wishes into intentions and resolves — who 
yet never take a step toward realizing them. 
Mere knowing what it is to be a Christian 
makes no one a Christian ; many perish with 
the glorious ideal shining full and clear 
before their eyes. Merely seeing the beauty 
of Christ, as it is held before us for our copy- 
ing, will never fashion us into that beauty. 
Our knowledge must be wrought into life. 
18 



Beginning Well. 

The image our souls see must be fashioned 
into character. Our good intentions must 
take form in daily deeds. Knowing God's 
will, we must do it with willing heart and 
diligent hand. 

" Make my mortal dreams come true 
With the work I fain would do ; 
Clothe with life the weak intent : 
Let me be the thing I meant ; 
Let me find in thy employ 
Peace that dearer is than joy ; 
Out of self to love be led, 
And to heaven acclimated, 
Until all things sweet and good 
Seem my natural habitude." 



19 



CHAPTER III. 

The Christian Life: The Ideal. 

Y^HAT is it to be a Christian ? What is 
that change which, wrought in a natural 
man, makes him a Christian man ? What 
are a Christian's new relations to God and to 
his fellow men ? What is Christian char- 
acter ? How should a Christian live ? What 
is the pattern on which his life should be 
fashioned ? If we would make our Christian 
life what it ought to be, we must find plain, 
clear answers to these questions. 

A Christian is one who believes on Christ. 
He has intrusted his whole life, with its sin, 
its guilt, its ruin, its need its security for 
eternity, its redemption, cleansing and trans- 
formation, to the hands of the mighty Saviour, 
the strong Son of God. A Christian is there- 
fore a saved one, a redeemed one — saved, 
redeemed, by Christ. He is no longer guilty 
and condemned : he is acquitted, justified, 
restored to such relations before God that he 
is as if he had never sinned, so fully are his 
sins put away. He is God's lost and wander- 



The Christian Life: The Ideal. 

ing child brought home, received, reconciled, 
restored to all a child's privileges. 

But this is not all ; it is not merely a change 
of relations. Those who believe on Christ 
are born again, the Scriptures say — born from 
above, born of God ; that is, there is a new, 
a divine, life in the regenerated soul. Christ 
speaks of it as a well of water in the believer 
springing up into everlasting life. The result 
is shown in new affections, new desires, new 
hopes, new aims. Forgiveness of sins is not 
enough. A man's lies and dishonesties may 
be forgiven ; but, if that is all, he is still a 
liar and dishonest. God's forgiveness re- 
generates. A Christian life is the setting up 
of the kingdom of God in a human heart. 

A child was troubled at the thought that 
heaven was so far away, and was perplexed 
to know how he could ever get up to that 
bright home. His mother explained to him 
that heaven must first come down to him — 
must first enter his heart. A Christian is one 
into whose heart the spirit of heaven has 
entered. The new life is like that they live 
in heaven. We are taught to pray, " Thy 
will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." 
The one place in all the earth in which it 
most concerns each Christian to see that 
God's will is done as it is in heaven is in his 
own individual heart. 

If we are truly born again, the life of 



In His Steps. 

heaven has really begun within us. It may- 
be very feeble in its beginning, like one little 
seed only, planted in a garden ; but the one 
seed is from heaven, and the new life in us 
has truly begun. " That which is born of 
the Spirit," said the Master, <4 is spirit." It is 
the life of the Spirit in a human soul. Paul 
put this truth in a very striking way when he 
said, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
me." Our Lord said a Christian is "a 
branch " of the true Vine. -This suggests 
what Christian life and character should be 
before the world. Every true Christian is a 
new incarnation. Christ showed the world in 
his own person the life of the invisible God. 
No human eye ever saw God in his glory ; 
no one could ever have seen him had not 
Christ come down and in a plain, simple, and 
real, human life which men could see and 
understand, lived out the divine life which in 
its glory men could neither see nor under- 
stand. He interpreted the invisible things of 
God in act and phrase which the common 
people could read. He said, when he was 
asked about God, " Look at me and see God. 
I and my Father are one. He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father." 

In like manner, in his own small measure, 
every one truly a Christian is an incarnation 
of God, and should be able in humility to 
say, " Look at me, and you will see a dim 

22 



The Christian Life: The Ideal. 

but faithful representation of God." This 
puts a very solemn responsibility on every 
Christian. He represents God in this world, 
and is to live in such a way that from his life 
men shall learn the truth about God. If 
Christ lives in us, men must see Christ in our 
faces and hear him in our words and learn 
of him in our acts. 

The ideal of Christian life is therefore the 
likeness of Christ. That is the pattern shown 
in the mount after which we are to strive to 
fashion our life. 

As we study Christ in the Gospels there 
rises up before us the vision of his matchless 
beauty. We go over the chapters, and we 
find one fragment of his loveliness here and 
another there ; and as we read the story 
through to the end beauty after beauty ap- 
pears, until at length we see a full vision of 
the Christ which, though imperfect by reason 
of the imperfectness of our nature, yet truly 
represents to us the image of our blessed Re- 
deemer. This is the pattern we are to follow 
in fashioning our lives. This is the vision 
we are to seek to carve into reality in our 
own character. All our acts we are to bring 
to the example of Christ, testing each one 
by that infallible standard. 

The Gospels should be studied by the young 
Christian as a builder studies the architect's 
drawings, that every minutest detail may be 
23 



In His Steps. 

exactly reproduced so far as in a faulty and 
sinful human life the character and conduct 
of the faultless and sinless Jesus can be re- 
produced. The perfect pattern is ever to be 
held before us for imitation, and as we look 
at it glowing in all its marvelous beauty, yet 
far above us and beyond our present reach, 
we are to comfort ourselves and stir our 
hearts to the noblest efforts and highest at- 
tainments by the thought, " That is what 
some time I am going to be." However 
slow may be our progress toward that perfect 
ideal ; however sore the struggles with weak- 
ness and sin ; however often we fail, — we are 
never to lose sight of the distant goal nor 
cease to strive and press toward the mark. 
Some day, if we are faithful to the end and 
faint not, we shall emerge out of all failure 
and struggle, and, seeing Jesus as he is, shall 
be fully transformed into his blessed image. 

Such is the aim of the Christian life. " We 
shall be like him " — that is the final destiny 
of every redeemed life. This should be in- 
spiration enough to arouse in the dullest soul 
every sluggish hope and every slumbering 
energy, and to impel to the highest effort and 
the most heroic struggle. This assurance 
should perpetually shine like a bright star 
beyond the fields of toil and battle, forbid- 
ding discouragement in any temporary fail- 
ure or defeat and cheering all faintness and 
24 



The Christian Life: The Ideal. 

weariness into buoyant strength and enthu- 
siasm. 

This goal of blessedness is not to be reached 
at one bound : it is the work of long and 
painful years, and the progress is slow and 
the transformation gradual and almost im- 
perceptible. 

" Heaven is not gained by a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
And we mount to its summit round by round." 

It will help us, in striving after the per- 
fected beauty, to remember that we can best 
attain it by carving each moment's line with 
care. God gives us life by days and hours, 
not by months and years. The way to have 
his purpose for us fulfilled in us is to fill each 
minute with simple faithfulness. Doing God's 
will for one moment not only lights the path 
for the next, but prepares us for its responsi- 
bility. Charles Kingsley said, " Do to-day's 
duty, fight to-day's temptation, and do not 
weaken or distract yourself by looking for- 
ward to things which you cannot see, and 
could not understand if you saw them." 

Character is a mosaic in which each day 
has its little stone to set ; we need but to look 
well to the days as they come, and to print 
on each its record of beauty, and the whole 
will be beautiful in the end. This living sim- 

25 



In His Steps. 

ply by the day is one of the royal secrets of a 
beautiful life which every young Christian 
should learn. 

A life thus lived, each day made beautiful 
with the beauty of holiness and of useful- 
ness, will in the end give a record of duty 
well done, of work completed, of blessings 
left behind at each step, and a character 
transfigured by the indwelling divine Spirit 
and the outworking of love until it shines in 
the full likeness of Christ himself. 



26 



CHAPTER IV. 

Living for God : Consecration. 

IT is not enough to cut loose from the old 
life : the young Christian must enter the 
new life. Leaving the service of one master, 
he must enlist in that of another. Withdraw- 
ing his heart's affections from one class of 
objects, he must fix them upon another class. 
Ceasing to do evil, he must also learn to do 
well. No longer a servant of sin, he must 
become a servant of righteousness. Mere 
repentance is not enough ; giving up one's 
wicked ways is but half of conversion : there 
must also be a devotement of the life to 
Christ. The heart cannot be left empty. 

"When St. Boniface had hewn down the 
sacred oak worshiped by the savages in the 
tangled forests of Germany, he did not stop 
with destroying it, but when it was felled 
built out of its fallen and splintered frag- 
ments the chapel of St. Peter, and in the 
room of the worship of Thor the Thunderer 
left the worship of Christ the crucified. ■ To 
replace is to conquer ;' and the theology of 



In His Steps. 

the forests fled back abashed before the the- 
ology of the cross." 

When we break with the world, we must 
straightway bow before Christ ; indeed, we 
can be freed from the dominion of the old 
master only by the coming into our hearts 
of the new. The only way we can turn from 
sin is by turning to Christ. He then be- 
comes, first, Deliverer and Saviour; after- 
wards, King and Lord. As such he must be 
accepted, and the whole allegiance of the 
life should instantly be transferred to him. 

This is conversion ; it is going over to 
Christ fully, wholly, freely and for ever. It 
is not merely attaching ourselves to the 
church : it is attaching ourselves to Christ. 
It is not merely entering upon a good moral 
life — pure, honest, clean ; not merely en- 
gaging in active Christian work : it is the 
acceptance of Christ, first as a personal Sa- 
viour, then as a personal Lord. It is coming 
to Christ himself, believing on him, following 
him, loving him, obeying him. 

It is important that the young Christian 
shall understand this, and that his devotion 
to his Lord shall be real and complete. No 
man can serve two masters. It will not do to 
try a divided allegiance. True consecration 
carries all over to Christ. 

For one thing, this means holiness : " Ye 
are not your own, for ye are bought with a 
28 



Living for God : Consecration. 

price: therefore glorify God." Holiness 
means separation for God. The life which 
belongs to Christ must be kept from sin. 
The hands which are held up in prayer and 
that take the sacramental emblems must not 
touch any unclean thing. The lips which 
speak to God, sing his praise and pronounce 
his name must not be stained by any sin- 
ful or bitter words. The heart which is the 
dwelling place of the Holy Spirit must not 
open to any thought or affection that would 
defile God's temple. The feet which Christ's 
pierced hands have washed must not walk 
in any of sin's unhallowed paths. A con- 
secrated life must be holy. 

Unholiness is very subtle. It creeps in 
when we are not aware. It begins in the 
heart. At first it is but a thought, a moment's 
imagination, a passing emotion, or a desire. 
Hence the heart should be kept with unre- 
mitting diligence. Only pure and good 
thoughts should be entertained. It is in the 
thoughts that all life begins. All acts are 
thoughts first. Our thoughts build up our 
character as the coral insects build up the 
great reefs. As a man thinketh in his heart 
so is he. If we are to keep ourselves un- 
spotted from the world as we pass through 
its foul streets, we must see to it that no 
unholy thing is for a moment tolerated in our 
heart. A crime stains one's name before 
29 



In His Steps. 

the world ; a sinful thought or wish stains 
the soul in God's sight and grieves the di- 
vine Spirit within us. 

But the keeping of the life unspotted is not 
the whole of living for God : there must be 
service also. When young Christians are 
received into the church they profess to dedi- 
cate themselves and all they have — time, 
talents, money, every power of body, soul, 
and spirit — to the service of Christ for ever. 
This means that they will no longer claim 
mastership over themselves ; that henceforth 
they are Christ's servants ; that they will live 
for Christ only all the days ; that they will 
listen at each step for his command and 
promptly obey it ; that they will devote all 
their possessions to him, using them for him 
and at his bidding ; and that they will em- 
ploy their talents and influence to advance 
his kingdom. 

Daily duty in the common relations of life 
is as much part of a true consecration as are 
praying, reading the Bible, and attending 
church services. If the heart be given to 
Christ, the whole life is holy. We do not live 
two lives — one religious and one secular — 
after we become Christians. We are always 
to do God's will, and it is as much his will 
that we should be diligent in business as that 
we should be fervent in spirit. 



30 



Living for God : Consecration. 

" The trivial round, the common task, 
Would furnish all we ought to ask — 
Room to deny ourselves, a road 
To bring us daily nearer God." 

When young persons yet in school become 
Christians, they are not to drop their secular 
studies and read the Bible all the time : they 
are to go on with their lessons — only with 
new motives, for Christ now — faithfully using 
every moment, diligently striving to get the 
greatest possible benefit and improvement 
from their education to fit them for the life 
and work before them. When religion makes 
a pupil less diligent, less studious, less earn- 
est, there is something wrong. When a 
young man in a trade or business gives him- 
self to Christ, unless his occupation is sinful 
he is ordinarily called to continue in it, car- 
rying his Christian principles into it and do- 
ing business now for Christ. 

Secular work is not unholy. All duty is 
sacred in God's sight. The hands of Jesus 
swung the ax and pushed the plane, and he 
pleased the Father just as well then as when 
he was praying and reading the Scriptures. 
Paul's hand sewed upon tents, and he was 
just as near to God when thus at work as 
when he was preaching in the synagogue. 

Of course the motive of life is changed 
when we truly belong to Christ. Self comes 
down from the throne and we do everything 
31 



In His Steps. 

for the Master: " Whether ye eat, or drink, 
or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
God." We train our powers to greater effi- 
ciency that we may be more useful in Christ's 
work. We live carefully that in the smallest 
things we may honor him. We seek in- 
creased influence that we may do more to 
bless the world and advance the glory of 
Christ's name. The world is reading our 
lives, and it reads no other Bible ; we must 
make sure, therefore, that our daily actions 
spell out a true gospel, so that no one who 
sees us may ever get from us a wrong thought 
of Christ or a wrong sense of his religion. 

We do not understand one half the bless- 
ing to others and the influence for religion 
there is in simply being good. We struggle 
to be active and to do many things. We 
run everywhere to work for Christ. We 
think that unless we are always doing some- 
thing, or talking to somebody, or holding a 
meeting somewhere, or visiting the poor or 
the sick, we are not useful. We make a mis- 
take. There is no other such power for real 
usefulness and helpfulness, no other such 
glorifying of God, as in simple goodness. 
Holy life itself is highest service. 

Hence there should be in eveiy young 

Christian the most conscientious watchfulness 

over the early growths of spirituality in his 

own heart. These growths are tender and 

32 



Living for God : Consecration. 

easily destroyed, like the young plants which 
the gardener keeps in his conservatory 
through the winter and cool spring days. 

The whole matter of heart-culture requires 
the utmost diligence. All life, business and 
social as well as religious, must be made to 
contribute to it. We should form our friend- 
ships and choose our amusements with refer- 
ence to their effect on our heart-life. Some 
one has given this true test, whose applica- 
tion should be wide as life itself: " Whatever 
weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness 
of your conscience, obscures your view of 
God or takes off the relish of spiritual things 
— in short, whatever increases the authority 
of your body over your mind — that is sin to 
you, however innocent it may be in itself." 

A life so regulated, so watched, so ruled by 
conscience and by the word and Spirit of 
God, will grow into a living power of real 
holiness the value of whose ministry will be 
incalculable in its silent pervasive influence. 

" Birds, by being glad, their Maker bless ; 
By simply shining, sun and star ; 
And we, whose law is love,- serve less 
By what we do than what we are." 

There is still another part of all true con- 
secration : besides living a pure and good 
life, and besides doing all our daily work for 
Christ, we should also embrace every oppor- 
3 33 



In His Steps. 

tunity of doing good to others in Christ's 
name and for his sake. There are needy 
and suffering ones all about us, and we are 
to do Christ's errands to these, performing for 
them the ministries of kindness and mercy 
which he would render if he were here in 
person. There are weak and fainting ones 
about us who find life hard and who need 
sympathy and help. To all these we have 
errands of love ; we should share their 
burdens and put strong, sustaining arms 
about them in their weakness. 

A life for Christ must always be a life of 
love, of usefulness and of helpfulness. No 
true Christian lives for himself. We have 
our model in him who came " not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister." We need 
not wait for great opportunities — these come 
but rarely ; the common days are full of 
opportunities for little kindnesses, thoughtful- 
nesses, and unselfishnesses, and in order to 
write bright records for ourselves we have 
only to seize these and stretch out our hands 
to render the ministries to which God thus 
invites and calls us. Doing the thing that 
Christ himself would do if he were precisely 
in our place — that is the rule for Christian 
living. 

Thus consecration becomes very real. It 
is living for God, day by day, hour by 
hour. It is nothing strained or unnatural ; 

34 



Living for God: Consecration. 

it does not wrench us out of our place nor 
disturb our relationships unless they are sin- 
ful ; it is the simple living out in true devo- 
tion to Christ, in unquestioning obedience 
and in quiet faithfulness, the life he gives, 
in whatever sphere our lot may be cast. 



35 



CHAPTER V. 
Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 

HTHE experience of temptation is universal. 
Every life must grow up amid unfriend- 
ly and opposing influences — some of them 
subtle and insidious, like miasma in the air ; 
some of them fierce and wild, like the blast 
of storm or the rush of battle. Much is 
said in sermons about the solemn nature of 
death ; yet really it is not half so perilous a 
thing to die as it is to live. No child of God 
was ever lost, or even harmed, in the experi- 
ence of dying. 

" The grave itself is but a covered bridge 
Leading from light to light through a brief dark- 
ness." 

But life is full of peril. To live truly we 
must battle day by day. Satan is no medi- 
aeval myth, but an actual foe, powerful, 
cunning, treacherous, terrible. Danger lurks 
in every shadow. 

The question in life is not how to escape 
temptation, but how to pass through it so as 
36 



Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 

not to be harmed by it. Christ's way of 
helping us is not by keeping us out of the 
conflicts. This would leave us forever weak, 
untried, undisciplined. The price of spiritual 
attainment and culture is struggle. Jesus 
himself was made perfect through suffering. 
All the best things in life — the only things 
worth obtaining — lie beyond fields of battle, 
and we can get them only by overcoming. 
It would be no kindness to us were God to 
withdraw us into some sheltered spot when- 
ever there is danger, or if he were to fight 
our battles for us, thus freeing us from all 
necessity to struggle. 

11 He who hath never a conflict hath never a victor's 
palm, 
And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest 
and calm." 

We must meet temptation, and we must 
fight. Not to fight is to lose all. Nor is 
there really any need for yielding. The 
weakest child may move unharmed through 
the sorest strifes. It is possible to meet the 
strongest temptations and not be hurt by 
them. It has been done. Men have met 
the fiercest enemies, the most unrelenting 
oppositions, passing through the hottest 
flames, and have come out, like the Hebrew 
children from the king's furnace, without 
even the smell of fire on their garments. 
37 



In His Steps. 

Whatever may be said of the weakness of 
human nature unhelped and unsustained, 
there still is no need for any trembling soul 
to faint or to fail in the strife. 

There is a divine Helper who himself went 
into the thickest of the struggle and passed 
through it unharmed. He was " in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin " — 
that is, he met all life victoriously ; and 
because he was thus victorious he is able, not 
only to understand human struggles and to 
sympathize with every one who is tempted, 
but also to give "grace to help in time of 
need." We have the assurance that the faith- 
ful God will not suffer us to be tempted above 
that we are able ; but will with the temptation 
make the way of escape, that we may be able 
to endure it. 

There is, therefore, a way of so living in 
this world as not to suffer harm in even the 
fiercest temptations — to pass through them 
and not be touched by them. There is even 
a way of so meeting temptations as to get 
benefit and blessing from them. An apostle 
said, " Count it all joy when ye fall into mani- 
fold temptations ; knowing that the proof of 
your faith worketh patience;" "Blessed is 
the man that endureth temptation : for when 
he hath been approved, he shall receive the 
crown of life, which the Lord promised to 
them that love him." 
33 



Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 

Rightly meeting and victoriously resisting 
puts new fiber into the soul. The Indians say 
that when a warrior kills a foe the spirit of 
the vanquished enemy enters the victor's 
heart and adds to his own strength. This is 
true in spiritual warfare. We grow stronger 
through our struggles and victories. Each 
lust conquered, each evil subdued, adds to 
the strength of our soul. 

The question, then, is how to meet tempta- 
tion so as to overcome it, and thus win the 
blessing there is in it. We must remember, 
first of all, that we are not able in ourselves 
successfully to fight our battles. If we think 
we are, and go forth in our own name and 
strength, we shall fail. Life is too large, and 
its struggles and conflicts are too sore, for the 
strongest human power unaided. 

We must settle it once for all that we can 
conquer only in the name and by the help of 
the strong Son of God. We may come off 
the field more than conquerors, but only 
through him that loved us. We can pass 
safely through all the fierce dangers of this 
world and be kept unspotted amid its sin and 
foulness, but only if we have with us him 
who is able to guard us from stumbling and 
set us before the presence of his glory without 
blemish in exceeding joy. Self-confidence in 
temptation is fatal folly. 

Then we must be sure that the temptation 



In His Steps. 

we are meeting really lies in the path of our 
duty — that God calls us to meet it. Some 
temptations must be overcome by avoidance, 
by not meeting them. We pray each morn- 
ing, "Lead us not into temptation;" we 
must, then, be sure that we are following our 
Father's leading when we enter any way of 
temptation. Only when the temptation comes 
in the path over which the divine Guide takes 
us, have we the assurance of protection in it. 

Lord Macaulay tells us that at the siege of 
Naumur, while the conflict was raging, 
William, prince of Orange, who was giving 
his orders under a shower of bullets, saw with 
surprise and anger among his staff officers 
Michael Godfrey, the deputy governor of the 
Bank of England. He had come to the king's 
headquarters on business, and was curious to 
see real war. 

41 Mr. Godfrey," said King William, "you 
ought not to run these hazards. You are not 
a soldier ; you can be of no use to us here." 

" Sir," answered Godfrey, " I run no more 
risk than Your Majesty." 

"Not so," said William. "I am where it 
is my duty to be, and I may without pre- 
sumption commit my life to God's keeping ; 
but you — " 

Before the sentence was finished a cannon- 
ball laid Godfrey dead at the king's feet. 

The king's words were true, and the truth 
40 



Meeting Temptation : Conflict. 

is just as applicable to temptations and spirit- 
ual dangers as to the perils of war. When 
duty calls us into any place, we are safe : 
God will protect us ; but otherwise we venture 
without any promise of shelter. We must 
face danger only when God and duty unmis- 
takably lead. 

Then, when we find ourselves in the pres- 
ence of temptation, we must not forget that 
we have something to do ourselves in getting 
the victory. Men and devils may tempt us, 
but men and devils cannot force us to yield. 
We are sovereigns in our choices while the 
right and the wrong stand before us. Other 
wills than ours may seek to influence us — 
may plead, entreat, persuade — but they can- 
not compel. 

We cannot avoid being tempted, but we 
ought to avoid yielding to temptation. Luther 
used to say, " We cannot keep the birds from 
flying round our heads, but we can prevent 
them building their nests in our hair." We 
cannot keep temptations away from our ears 
nor prevent them whispering their seductive 
words close by us, but we can hinder them 
making their nests in our hearts. 

We are not to be passive in this matter. 
We must not expect God to fasten the door 
and hold his hand upon the lock. The shut- 
ting and opening of the door is our part of 
the responsibility. Even God himself will 
41 



In His Steps. 

never come into our heart unless we volun- 
tarily open it to him. Christ stands without 
and knocks, waiting with all his wealth of 
love and all his power to bless until we bid 
him welcome. We with our frail weakness 
can keep even Omnipotence outside. So, as 
divine grace cannot enter to do us good un- 
less we open, neither can satanic evil enter 
to work ruin in our souls without our consent. 
We are doorkeeper of our own heart. Thus the 
final responsibility is with ourselves. Hence 
our duty in temptation is unwavering resist- 
ance — an unreversible "No ! " to every solici- 
tation to sin. If we settle this point, we have 
learned one of the greatest lessons in spiritual 
warfare — "having done all, to stand." 

Besides this, nothing more is needed but 
faith and prayer. When the temptation 
comes in the path of duty, and when we re- 
sist it with unflinching determination, we may 
with simple confidence commit the keeping 
of our life to God. No evil can ever harm 
us if we cleave unfalteringly to Christ : " He 
shall give his angels charge over thee, to 
keep thee in all thy ways." Still better : 
"The Lord is thy keeper." 

There come times in every life when all we 
can do is to shut our eyes and let God lead 
us. Indeed, in all hours of darkness and 
danger, this is our privilege and our duty ; 
and if we thus commit our way to God, he 
42 



Meeting Temptation: Conflict. 

will bring us safely through the last peril and 
the last struggle into the light and joy of 
victory on the heavenly plains. 

Then it will be seen that it has been no 
misfortune that we have had to fight sore 
battles on the earth. Old war-veterans are 
not ashamed of their scars — they are marks 
of honor ; they tell of wounds received in 
battling for their country. In heaven the sol- 
dier of Christ will not be ashamed of the 
scars he has gotten in his warfare for his 
Lord on the earth ; his crown will be all the 
brighter for them. They will shine as the 
King's medals, decorations of honor — "the 
marks of the Lord Jesus." 

When an army marches home from a 
victorious field, it is not the bright, clean, un- 
torn flag that is most wildly cheered, but the 
flag that is pierced, riddled and torn by the 
shot and shell of many a battle. So in the 
home-coming in glory it will not be the man 
who bears fewest marks of suffering and 
struggle and fewest scars of wounds re- 
ceived in Christ's service who will be wel- 
comed with the greatest joy, but the man 
who bears the marks of the sorest conflicts 
and the greatest sufferings for the honor of 
his Lord and for his kingdom. 



43 



CHAPTER VI. 

Working for Christ: Service. 

pVERY truly consecrated life has been 
made over to Christ with all its powers. 
Faith implies full surrender: "Ye are not 
your own ; " "Ye are Christ's." Christ owns 
us first by right of creation, then by right of 
purchase ; and we acknowledge his owner- 
ship and all that it includes when we accept 
him as our Saviour and Lord. The first 
question, therefore, of the new-believing 
heart is, "What shall I do, Lord?" We 
want to begin to work for our new Master. 

" Be thy best thoughts to work divine addressed ; 
Do something — do it soon — with all thy might : 
An angel's wings would droop if long at rest, 
And God himself, inactive, were no longer blest." 

We belong to Christ ; we are his slaves — that 
is the word St. Paul used so much, and with 
such a thrill of joy as he thought of the honor 
it denoted. He was Christ's slave. "Whose 
I am, and whom I serve," was his working 
creed. "Thy will, not mine," is henceforth 
44 



Working for Christ : Service. 

the only true law of life for us. We are to 
wait at each step for Christ's bidding. Our 
very thoughts must be brought into captivity 
to him. 

This ownership covers and embraces all 
life. A heart of love for Christ makes the 
sweeping of a room, the ploughing of a field, 
the sawing of a board, the making of a gar- 
ment, the selling of a piece of goods, the 
minding of a baby, all actions as fine as the 
ministry of angels. 

One way of working for Christ, therefore, 
is to be diligent in the doing of life's common 
daily tasks. The true giving of ourselves to 
God exalts all of life into divine honor and 
sacredness. Nothing is trivial or indifferent 
which it is our duty to do. We are never to 
neglect any work, however secular it may 
seem, in order to do something else which 
appears to be more religious. There are 
some people who would be better Chris- 
tians if they paid more heed to their own 
daily business, attended fewer meetings and 
did less religious gossiping. Ruskin says, 
"Neither days nor lives can be made holy 
by doing nothing in them. The best prayer 
at the beginning of a day is that we may not 
lose its moments ; and the best grace before 
meat, the consciousness that we have justly 
earned our dinner." 

We need a religion which puts itself into 
45 



In His Steps. 

everything we do. The old shoemaker was 
right when he said that when he stands 
before the great white throne God will ask, 
44 What kind of shoes did you make down on 
the earth?" We must do all our work for 
the judgement day, our common everyday 
tasks as well as our religious duties. The 
carpenter must get his religion into the 
houses he builds, the plumber into his plumb- 
ing, the tailor into his seams, the merchant 
into his sales. All our work we must do for 
God's eye. 

But, besides this living of the whole life for 
Christ, there is specific work for him in which 
every Christian has a part to perform. Every 
one who is saved should do something toward 
saving others. The first thought of a truly 
saved person is of some friend or friends who 
are still in peril ; and the first impulse of a 
renewed heart is to try to bring these lost 
ones to the Saviour. The cause of Christ in 
this world needs assistance in many ways, 
and it is the will of the Master that this cause 
should be advanced, not by the ministry of 
angels, not by Christ himself immediately 
and directly, but by his people — those whom 
he has redeemed and saved. The story of 
salvation must be told by lips that have first 
uttered the cry for mercy. The lost must be 
won by the love of hearts that have first been 
broken in penitence. The divine blessing of 
46 



Working for Christ : Service. 

salvation must be carried in earthen vessels 
to the perishing. 

Every Christian has something to do for 
Christ in this world. The fullest hands must 
make room for some little part of the Mas- 
ter's work. Even the child that loves Christ 
may at least carry a cup of the water of life 
to some thirsty soul. 

Every Christian should be deeply imbued 
with the missionary spirit. A portion of the 
responsibility for carrying the news of salva- 
tion to every creature rests on each follower 
of Christ. In these days of missionary 
activity there is no one who cannot do some- 
thing to help send the gospel to heathen 
lands. Every young Christian should con- 
sider himself, from the moment of his con- 
secration to Christ, a debtor to all men, near 
and far, who are not yet saved, and in prayer 
and work and gift he should seek to pay that 
debt to the last atom of his ability. 

In nearly every church there are mis- 
sionary organizations for the cultivation of 
the missionary spirit, the diffusing of infor- 
mation and the gathering of money for the 
work of missions. Every young Christian 
should be identified with one of these organi- 
zations, thus imbibing the missionary spirit 
and preparing for active interest and service 
in the cause. 

There is also very much sorrow and suffer- 
47 



In His Steps. 

ing in this world, and every Christian should 
do all in his power to comfort the sorrow and 
alleviate the suffering. Here, as in all things, 
Jesus himself is our example and his life is 
our pattern. We represent him in this world. 
He has gone away to heaven, but he has left 
his people here to carry on his work. 

Here is a wide field for Christlike and 
most helpful ministry. What we need for it 
is a spirit of sympathy and kindness that 
shall never fail. We may not be able to do 
much to relieve those who are troubled : we 
certainly cannot work miracles as Christ did ; 
but we may have a heart of love which shall 
manifest itself toward every one in a spirit 
of patient gentleness and kindly thoughtful- 
ness. 

Sincere sympathy is oftentimes better than 
money. People in distress generally need a 
friend more than they need gift or miracle. 
God sends to earth no angels whose ministry 
leaves more benedictions of joy, of help, of 
inspiration, of uplifting, of restoring, than 
are left by the ministry of the angel of true 
human sympathy. 

For this service we need only to have in 
us the true spirit of Christ, a spirit of unself- 
ish love, and then blessing will flow from 
our life even without effort or purpose, 
unconsciously, as fragrance pours from a 
flower, as light streams from a lamp. 



Working for Christ : Service. 

" As some rare perfume in a vase of clay 
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 
So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul, 
All heaven's own sweetness seems around it 
thrown." 

Christ did other kinds of work, but it was 
the same spirit that wrought in all his min- 
istry. He taught the people ; he scattered 
the words of truth ; he lifted up his voice 
against wrong and sin ; he sought the lost 
and led them back to the Father; he went 
to the cross in the room of sinners. In all 
forms of personal ministry we are to strive 
to follow in his steps. The golden seeds of 
heavenly truth which his lips dropped we are 
to seek to scatter everywhere in life's desert- 
fields. 

The very best thing we can do for people 
in this world of sin and sorrow is to get the 
words of Christ into their hearts. It is like 
scattering flower seeds on the black lava beds 
about the fiery mountain's base — in the crev- 
ices the seeds will root and grow, and sweet 
flowers will bloom by and by. Christ's 
words are living seeds from which spring up 
heavenly plants to beautify and bless bleak 
and dreary lives over which sin's fires have 
rolled. The tiniest hand and the weakest 
can scatter these seeds in some bare spot 
where they will grow. 

It is the little things that all of us can do 
4 49 



In His Steps. 

in Christ's name which in the end leave the 
largest aggregate of blessing in the world. 
We need not wait to do great and conspic- 
uous things. One Amazon is enough for a 
continent, but there is room for a million 
little rivulets and purling brooks. A life that 
every day gives its blessing to another and 
adds to the happiness of some fellow being 
by only a word of kindness, a thoughtful act, 
a cheering look, or a hearty hand-grasp, does 
more for the world than he who but once in 
a lifetime does some great thing which fills 
a land with his praise. Nothing that is done 
for Christ is lost. The smallest acts, the 
quietest words, the gentlest inspirations that 
touch human souls, leave their impress for 
eternity. 

Then, while we are giving out blessings to 
help and to enrich other lives, we are receiv- 
ing also into our own heart. The words of 
the Master are literally true: "It is more 
blessed to give than to receive." He did 
not say it is more pleasant, more agreeable, 
but more blessed. The song we sing to cheer 
a weary spirit echoes back new cheer into 
our own soul. The sacrifice we make to 
help one in distress leaves us not poorer, but 
richer. Love's stores are not wasted by giv- 
ing — the more we give, the more we have. 
The way to grow rich in the treasures of 
kindness and affection is to show kindness 

5° 



Working for Christ : Service. 

and affection to all who need. If we find 
our spiritual life languishing, its resources 
growing less, the true way to refresh it is 
not by closer economy in giving out to others, 
but by greater generosity. 

" For the heart grows rich in giving: 
All its wealth is living grain ; 
Seeds which mildew in the garner, 
Scattered, fill with gold the plain. 

*' Is the heart a living power? 

Self-entwined, its strength sinks low ; 
It can only live in loving ; 
And by serving love will grow." 

In every living church there are various 
organized forms of Christian activity ; in 
some one or more of these every member 
should be engaged. Let the young Christian 
at once choose the particular class of work 
in which he decides that it is best for him to 
engage, and promptly identify himself with 
the organization, society or band which has 
in view the special work he has selected. 
There should not be one idle Christian in any 
church. One of the most withering curses 
uttered in the Scriptures is against uselessness 
— against those who come not up to the help 
of the Lord against the mighty. 

Thus Christian work is not only a duty, 
but a means of grace. It is not the rest of 
inaction to which Christ calls us, but the rest 
5i 



In His Steps. 

of loving service. Every power of our being 
we should give to him to be used. Every 
gift we possess should be employed in doing 
good. That day is a lost day in which we do 
nothing to bless some other life in the name 
of Christ. 

" Work for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly : 
Labor ! all labor is noble and holy ; 
Let thy good deeds be a prayer to thy God." 



52 



CHAPTER VII. 

Helps: Personal Prayer. 

WE all need helps in our Christian life. 
Of course, all the help we require we 
can find in God. His is the almighty arm 
on which we should ever lean in our weak- 
ness ; his is the infinite life from whose full- 
ness we should ever draw for the refilling of 
our own exhausted life-pitchers ; his is the 
light that should ever shine upon our dark- 
ness for cheer, for comfort, for guidance, for 
joy. God is all we need. 

But we cannot see God with these mortal 
eyes ; we cannot feel his bosom when we 
need to lean upon it ; we cannot hear his 
voice when we listen for the word he may 
have to speak ; we cannot carry our empty 
pitchers up to heaven, where God dwells, to 
have them refilled. We are like vines torn 
off the trellis and trailing on the ground 
amid the dust and the weeds, and we cannot 
lift ourselves up to twine about the unseen 
supports which God's grace provides. We 
need something to help our dull senses — 
53 



In His Steps. 

something we can see or hear or touch ; 
something to interpret to our souls and bring 
near to them the spiritual things of divine 
love ; something to which the tendrils of our 
life can cling, and which will lift them up 
and fasten them on the invisible realities of 
the spiritual world. And in loving mercy, 
in condescension to our weakness and spirit- 
ual dullness, God has provided for us such 
helps as we need. He brings us his bless- 
ings in ways that are adapted to our earthly 
state and capacity. He puts the rich sup- 
plies of his heavenly grace in cups from 
which we can drink, and sets them low 
down where we can reach them. 

One of the helps which God has provided 
is prayer. Without prayer no Christian life 
can exist. There are other spiritual helps 
from the want of which we may suffer, but 
without which we may still live near to God ; 
but to give up prayer is to die. 

Why should we pray ? Because God is 
our Father and we are his children. It would 
be a most undutiful, unfilial, ungrateful child 
who should live in a good and beautiful 
home, enjoying its comforts, blessed by its 
love, and who should never have anything to 
say to the father whose heart and hand make 
the home, and who provides its comforts and 
pleasures. 

We should pray, also, because we need 
54 



Helps: Personal Prayer. 

things which we can get only by prayer. 
Some things we can pick up with our hands 
in this good world of our Father's, or buy 
with our money, or receive through our 
friends ; but there are things which we can 
get only directly from God himself, and only 
by asking him for them. He alone can for- 
give our sins ; and unless we are forgiven, 
life is not worth living. He alone can give 
us a new heart ; and unless we have a new 
heart, we can never enter heaven. He alone 
can give us grace to live a good and holy life 
and keep us from sinking back into sin. He 
alone can help us to fight life's battles and 
come out victorious at the end. He alone 
can lead us through death's valley to glory. 
Indeed, we can do nothing without God. 
The leaf quivering on the bough is not more 
dependent upon the tree for its greenness and 
life than are we dependent upon God for 
our very existence and for all blessings. 
We must pray or perish. 

But may we pray ? We look up, and we 
see no face in the heavens, no eye gazing 
down — nothing but sky and clouds or stars. 
We speak and then listen, but no answer 
comes to us : all is silence about us. Is 
there really any one to hear ? Or if there is, 
will he hear ? 

There are millions of people on the earth, 
and there are millions of other worlds besides 
55 



In His Steps. 

this. Astronomers tell us that our globe, if it 
were suddenly destroyed, would not be more 
missed in God's vast universe than one leaf 
which you might pluck off a wayside bush 
would be missed from all the leaves on all 
the trees and forests of the earth. It may be 
that, like our planet, these other countless 
worlds have their millions of inhabitants. 
Will God hear the cry of one person among 
so many? Does he take notice of indi- 
viduals ? Does he have particular thought 
and care for each one ? 

The Bible plainly answers these questions. 
It tells us that God is our Father ; that he 
loves us, not merely as a race, but as indi- 
viduals — loves us each one with a peculiar 
personal affection, as a human father loves 
each one of his children though he have 
many ; that he thinks of us, giving to the 
smallest, humblest of us particular thought 
and care, watching over us, listening for our 
cry, ready always at any moment to give the 
help we need and seek. 

A little child fancied that when she began 
to pray, God asked all the angels to stop 
singing and playing on their harps while he 
listened to her prayer until she said "Amen ! " 
She was not far wrong in her fancy. God 
does not need to hush the angels' songs to 
hear a child's prayer ; but he hears it, never- 
theless, amid all the noises of this great 
56 



Helps : Personal Prayer. 

universe, just as truly and clearly as if every 
other voice were hushed. 

One of the psalms represents God as in- 
clining his ear to the suppliant on the earth 
to hear his cry, as a man bends down so as 
to bring his ear close to one who speaks, that 
he may catch every word. In another psalm 
are these remarkable words : " He hath 
looked down from the height of his sanc- 
tuary ; from heaven did the Lord behold the 
earth ; to hear the groaning of the prisoner." 
The Bible is full of just such human repre- 
sentations of God's interest in his children on 
the earth, and of his loving attention when 
they cry to him. We may pray, therefore : 
there is One to hear us. 

How shall we pray so as to be heard and 
to receive help ? For one thing, there must 
be real desire in our hearts. Forms of 
words do not make prayer : we must want 
something, and must realize our dependence 
upon God for it. Then we must come to him 
as his children. It was Christ himself who 
taught us to pray to " Our Father which art 
in heaven." If we have the true child-spirit 
which the using of this invocation implies, 
we shall make our requests with confidence, 
believing that our Father loves us and will 
deny us nothing that is for our good. 

Of course, we must remember that God 
knows better than we do what is best for us, 
57 



In His Steps. 

and we must be willing, even when our 
desires are strongest and most impetuous, to 
say, ''Nevertheless not my will, but thine, 
be done.'* We must let our Father decide 
whether the thing we ask is the thing we 
need. The thing we want might be poison 
to our life ; if so, God will not give it to us, 
but, instead, will give us grace to do without 
it, which is an answer to our desire, and a far 
better answer than the thing we sought. 

Prayer should also be earnest. Two of 
our Lord's parables were spoken to impress 
this duty. If an unjust judge could be so 
moved by importunity, how much more will 
the loving heart of the heavenly Father yield 
to repeated supplication ! The man at whose 
door the friend knocked at midnight gave 
the loaves, not because it was his friend who 
asked them, but because the friend would not 
go away without them. God is not moved 
by such low motives, but the parable is meant 
to show the power of persevering importunity 
in prayer. God wants to see his children 
in earnest ; he loves to hear from suppliants 
the burning words which tell of intense 
desire. One fervent, impassioned " I will 
not let thee go, except thou bless me" has 
more power with God than whole years of 
cold, heartless, formal prayer. 

Of course, importunity must not become 
rebelliousness : in the greatest intensity of 
58 



Helps : Personal Prayer. 

our praying we must ever be ready to 
acquiesce in God's will. Importunity has 
its limits. It may at length become evident 
that God does not want to give us what we 
desire ; then we should cease to plead, with 
submissive faith accepting our Father's re- 
fusal. Thus our Lord himself in the garden 
was importunate, but from first to last he 
deferred all to his Father's will ; and after 
having prayed three times he ceased to 
plead, taking the cup held out to him. Paul 
was importunate in pleading for the removal 
of the thorn which so troubled him, but, like 
his Master, he also was acquiescent ; and 
after pleading three times he too ceased to 
urge his plea. 

There is little danger that we ever too 
earnestly or importunately press our desires 
for spiritual good, either for ourselves or for 
others. We know it is always God's will to 
give us more grace, to make us holier and 
purer, to bring out in us more clearly the 
features of the divine image, to give us more 
of his Holy Spirit : these are always bless- 
ings ; but in prayer for temporal things it is 
safer and wiser to ask humbly and with diffi- 
dence, laying our desires at God's feet, with- 
out anxious pressure, without too much 
urgency, trustfully submitting all to his un- 
erring wisdom. 

The true aim in living is not to grow rich, 
59 



In His Steps. 

to be clothed in earthly honor, to have mere 
worldly happiness and freedom from suffer- 
ing and loss, but rather to grow rich in 
spiritual graces, to be made more and more 
like Christ and to live out God's purpose and 
plan for our life. By far the noblest thing 
for us always is God's will. That means 
perfect beauty and perfect good. Anything 
else is marring and blemish. 

When shall we pray ? When the spirit of 
prayer is in the heart, there is little need to 
say just how or when prayer should be 
offered. Still, there must be habits. Merely 
to trust to the feeling or desire, and to have 
no fixed time for devotion, praying only 
when the heart prompts, is not safe. The 
end would be a prayerless life. The lamps 
in the temple burned continually, but they 
were trimmed and refilled every day. The 
flame of devotion in a Christian heart should 
never go out, but this lamp too must be re- 
plenished continually. 

Certainly, there should be a season of 
secret prayer at the opening, and again at the 
close, of every day. " In the morning it 
seems a hem and border to each day's life, 
and in the evening it brings down the dew on 
the spirit, to wash off the stain and dust, and 
to feed and refresh." In the morning the 
day lies before us with its unforeseen and 
untried experiences. It may bring painful 
60 



Helps : Personal Prayer. 

duty, sore struggle, hard task, keen suffering, 
sharp temptation, or perhaps death. How 
can we go out into the opening day which 
may have such experiences for us, without 
seeking the guidance and help of God ? In 
the evening we bring the day's history for 
review. There are sins to be forgiven ; there 
is work to be blessed ; there are thanks to be 
spoken for mercies ; there is weariness to be 
refreshed ; there is hunger to be fed. Then, 
as we go into the darkness and defenseless- 
ness of the night, there is protection to be 
invoked, and new life for a new day. 

We need to watch always that our prayers 
are real, fresh from our heart, and that they 
never degenerate into mere formalities, words 
without desires, petitions without wishes and 
without faith. True prayer is talking to God 
as one talks to a friend ; mere words are 
empty mockeries. We pray best in secret 
when we tell out our soul's deepest wants in 
the simplest phrases. As we grow in Chris- 
tian life prayer becomes more and more real 
to us. 

Dr. Phelps says, " Three stages of growth 
are commonly discernible respecting prayer 
in the Christian consciousness. They are, 
prayer as a resource in emergencies, prayer 
as a habit at appointed times, and prayer as 
a state in which a believer lives at all times." 
In this last and highest development, stated 
61 



In His Steps. 

times of prayer are not abandoned, but the 
heart does not limit itself to these in com- 
muning with God. The spirit of devotion 
overflows the fixed hours of prayer and holds 
fellowship with God continuously. Even the 
busiest hours of work are brightened by 
many a moment of heavenly communion. 
This is what is meant by walking with God. 
Men talk to him while at their work, in ejacu- 
lations of prayer. 

Thomas a Kempis says, "God alone is a 
thousand companions ; he alone is a world 
of friends. That man never knew what it 
was to be familiar with God, who complains 
of the want of friends while God is with him." 
It is this state of constant and unbroken 
communion with God toward which we should 
all strive. 

Let the life of the closet flow out into all 
the busy hours of the busiest days. It will 
be a defense for us amid temptations. It will 
give us power in Christian service. It will 
hallow all our influence. It will make holy 
and pure every nook and cranny of our life. 
It will give us peace in the midst of dangers. 
It will hold us apart from the world and near 
to God wherever we go. Like the beloved 
disciple, our habitual place will then be on 
the bosom of Jesus, and our earthly spirit will 
become filled with the brightness and the 
sweetness of his love. 
62 



Helps: Personal Prayer. 

Thus prayer is indeed the Christian's very 
vital breath. To cease to pray is to cease to 
live. The gate of prayer is never shut. We 
should keep the path to it well trodden. We 
can there find help in all weakness, light in 
all darkness, comfort in all sorrow, compan- 
ionship in all loneliness, friendship in all 
heart hunger. If we know how to get help 
in prayer, we need never fail at any point in 
life ; for then all God's might of love is ever 
back of our weakness, as the great ocean is 
back of the little bay. 



^ 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Helps: The Bible. 

A NOTHER indispensable help in Christian 
life is the Bible. In prayer, we talk to 
God ; in the Bible, God speaks to us. The 
first disciples heard the words of divine truth 
as they dropped directly from the lips of the 
great Teacher. They could bring their ques- 
tions right to him, and he would answer 
them. They could ask him what he wanted 
them to do, and he would tell them. When 
they were in sorrow, the words of comfort 
fell, warm and tender, from the very lips of 
the Son of God into their sad hearts. One 
of his friends sat at his feet and listened 
reverently and lovingly to his instructions ; 
another leaned his head on the Lord's bosom 
and whispered his confidential questions and 
received answers ; an inquirer came by night 
to him and had a long talk with him about 
the way to be saved. 

Those were wonderful days when God 
himself was on this earth in human form, 
speaking in the tones of actual human speech 
64 



Helps: The Bible. 

the words of life, and answering men's ques- 
tions with his own lips. We cannot any 
more hear the divine voice as men heard it 
then. Yet God still speaks. We can still 
bring our questions, and he will answer them. 
We can still sit at the Teacher's feet and hear 
his words. We can still rest our head on 
his bosom in our sorrow and listen to his 
assurances of love. We can still ask him 
how to be saved, and get a plain, clear 
answer. God speaks to men in his written 
word. 

The question is how to get help from the 
Bible. We know the help is there. Others 
find it, and we see their face glow or the tears 
glisten in their eyes as they read its pages. 
But somehow it does not open to us as it does 
to others. We cannot say, " Oh how love I 
thy law ! it is my meditation all the day." 
We try to make ourselves love the Bible and 
to find its words sweeter than honey and 
more precious than gold ; but, to be perfectly 
honest, we do not love it, nor do we find in 
it either the honey or the gold. Yet we know 
that the sweetness and the richness are there 
if only we could find them. How may we 
read the book so that it will open to us 
and show us its wondrous treasures of light, 
of love, of comfort, and of help ? 

For one thing, we must rid ourselves of 
all superstitious notions about the Bible. It 
5 65 



In His Steps. 

is not a talisman. Merely having a Bible in 
one's possession or on one's person will 
neither drive away evil nor bring good. 
Soldiers entering battle sometimes throw 
away their cards and put their Bible into 
their pocket : they imagine that then they 
will be safer in danger; but a Bible in a 
soldier's pocket is in itself no more protec- 
tion than a pack of cards. Nor, if he has it 
in his pocket only, will it be of any more use 
to him if he is killed in battle. The mere 
owning of a Bible or having one in the house 
does no one any good. It would be just as 
well to wear a crucifix or to nail a horseshoe 
over the door. We must get clear of super- 
stitious impressions respecting the holy word. 

We must remember, also, that the mere 
reading of a certain portion of the Bible 
every day will not make us wise unto salva- 
tion, nor purify our heart, nor give us com- 
fort in sorrow, nor put a staff into our hand 
to help us along life's rough, steep paths. 
The Bible does not yield its blessing to such 
reading. 

Then, further, it is not enough to under- 
stand the words, or even to memorize them. 
There are many people who have many 
Bible texts at their tongue's end who never 
get any real help from them, nor make any 
practical use of them. There are those who 
know the promises and can quote them to 
66 



Helps: The Bible. 

others, who are not able to apply one suitable 
promise to their own personal needs, and 
who get no benefit for their own lives from 
the texts they remember. Hiding the Bible 
in the memory is not all that is necessary to 
make its treasures of help availing. 

Just what is the office of the Bible with 
reference to our personal life ? There are 
books which it is necessary merely to read : 
they have no office or errand to us beyond 
the pleasure or instruction which their pages 
may impart as we go over them. We listen 
to a lecture on astronomy, and we hear many 
interesting things about the sun, the planets, 
or the stars. We believe what we hear, and 
we may remember the facts ; but it is not 
expected that the knowledge of these scien- 
tific facts will make any change in our con- 
duct or character to-morrow. If we are in 
trouble, these truths will not comfort us. 
We cannot pillow our heads upon them in 
sorrow. If we are perplexed about duty, we 
shall not get any light from them, — the stars 
are too far away and too cold. The same is 
true of all similar knowledge ; our whole 
duty with regard to it is to receive it and to 
lay it up among our mental treasures. 

But there is more than this to be done with 

the truths of the Bible. They are the words 

of God, and as such they are meant to be 

obeyed. They reveal to us invisible things 

6 7 



In His Steps. 

— things which no natural human eye can 
ever see — and we are to believe in these un- 
seen things as eternal realities and to live 
with reference to them. Every truth in the 
Bible has a practical bearing upon life in 
some of its phases. The Bible is therefore a 
book for life, not merely for knowledge. 

An illustration or two will make this plain. 
The first word that comes to the inquirer is, 
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved." It is not enough to know — 
even to understand — this word. It calls for 
an act — the committing of the soul, utterly 
and forever, for salvation, for life, for glory, 
into the hands of the only Redeemer and 
Saviour. — "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart." It is easy to memorize 
these words, but that is not all we are ex- 
pected to do with them. They have their 
proper outcome only when they draw out our 
heart's holiest affections and fasten them 
upon God in loyal, consecrating devotion. — 
" This is my commandment, That ye love one 
another." The sentiment, men say, is admi- 
rable. It is extolled by many on whose 
heart and life it makes no impression what- 
ever. No doubt the "sentiment" is very 
beautiful, but its true office is intensely prac- 
tical — to kindle in every Christian heart a 
deep, generous, unselfish affection which 



68 



Helps: The Bible. 

shall bind and hold together all believers in 
a common and holy brotherhood. 

To make proper use of such words as these 
we must not only understand them and 
admire them as ethical teachings, but must 
also submit our life to them, to be in- 
fluenced, moulded, colored, and directed, by 
their requirements — that is, we are to receive 
them as God's words of command to us and 
obey them accordingly. We are using the 
precepts and counsels of the Scriptures aright 
only when we are implicitly, unquestioningly, 
and loyally, walking in the way they mark 
out for our feet. 

The true outcome of the Bible as a book 
of commands is a holy personal life and a 
Christlike personal character. The way, 
then, to get help from the book is to come to 
it as to Christ himself, asking what he would 
have us to do, and then, as we read, submit- 
ting our life to every word's impact and 
influence. Thus the Bible will become to us 
a personal guide — the voice of Christ, ever 
saying, "This is the way;" the hand of 
Christ, ever leading us in right paths. 

There is another class of Bible words — the 
promises. These do not so much call for 
active obedience as for implicit belief and 
restful trust. They contain assurances of 
divine help and blessing in certain circum- 
stances. They tell us of things which we 
69 



In His Steps. 

cannot see. Thus they call for the exercise 
of faith, and therefore it is not easy to make 
them available. Many who are faithful in 
performing every required duty fail to get 
such help from God's promises in the hours 
of darkness as these promises are intended 
to give. 

How can Bible promises be made available 
in times of need ? How can we get from 
them that help which they are intended to 
give us in living? We must recognize and 
accept them as the sure and faithful words of 
God — words that will be fulfilled to the letter 
in the experience of every child of God who 
rests upon them. They must be hidden in 
the heart and kept always ready for instant 
use. Then, when the need comes for which 
these promises make provision, they must be 
personally appropriated and trusted in as 
God's fresh and explicit words of assurance 
to his loved ones. 

It is, in fact, only in the experiences of real 
need that the value of the divine promises 
can be realized. One may greatly admire a 
lifeboat as he looks at it hanging in its place 
above the ship's deck on a fair morning, but 
its true worth he does not know until the ship 
is going down and the lifeboat is his only 
hope of rescue. It is so with Bible promises. 
We do not know their worth until we enter 
upon the experiences in which we are help- 
70 



Helps: The Bible. 

less without them. We may admire them 
when all is fair and calm about us, but it is 
only when the shock of the tempest is on us 
and our earthly trusts are shattered that we 
can realize the value of the trusts which have 
God's arm underneath them. It is only 
when our path leads down into some dark 
gorge of trial where no earthly sunbeams fall 
that we learn the worth of the lamps of 
heavenly promise. 

Thus the Bible is a book for life, and only 
when we submit our life to it can we get its 
help. The hungry heart will always find 
the bread. The sincere and simple-hearted 
seeker after truth will always find the truth. 
The submissive spirit will receive guidance. 
The believing soul will find the arm of the 
Eternal under every word of promise. 

As to the manner of reading the Bible, but 
few suggestions may here be given. The 
heart is the great matter : if the heart be 
right, God's Spirit will guide, and will not 
only open the treasures of the Scriptures and 
reveal their sweetness, but will also open the 
reader's eyes to behold the wondrous things 
that the sacred book contains. 

The Bible should certainly be read every 
day ; our soul as well as our body needs 
daily bread. It should be read, too, in con- 
nection with secret prayer : the two exercises 
mutually help each other. Devotion without 
7i 



In His Steps. 

the word to feed upon is inadequate for our 
soul's needs, and without prayer the Bible 
does not open to us nor yield the blessing 
we seek. We should always keep the Bible 
lying open on the closet table. 

With regard to the method, the Bible may 
be read in course, or read by books, or read 
by topics, or read to meet the needs of the 
day, or read fragmentarily without order or 
plan. Some persons read the Bible through 
every year. Too many read without system 
or method of any kind, beginning wherever 
the book opens ; and as a result they read 
certain portions many times over, but leave 
whole sections unread and unexplored. 
Every intelligent Christian should seek to 
become familiar with all parts of the Bible, 
and therefore it is well to read it through 
regularly in order. 

Besides this, however, it is well to read 
also by topics, searching the volume through 
with concordance and text book, to know 
what the Holy Spirit teaches on all phases 
of a particular subject. It is profitable, too, 
to read single books, if possible at one sit- 
ting. This is especially helpful to the under- 
standing of the Epistles. As experience 
ripens and the book becomes more familiar, 
it is pleasant and helpful to turn each day to 
passages that meet the peculiar needs of the 
day. Young Christians will usually find it 
72 



Helps: The Bible. 

profitable to begin with the story of Christ in 
the Gospels, studying the life and words of 
the Master until their hearts are filled with 
thoughts and memories of him whose life is 
their pattern and whose words are to guide 
their steps. 

The system of international Sabbath-school 
lessons affords an excellent opportunity for 
thorough and consecutive Bible study. In 
seven years the student is carried through 
the whole book. Of course many parts of 
it are not taken up in the lessons ; but if the 
portions thus omitted between the Sabbath 
sections are carefully read each week, the 
entire Bible will be gone over in the seven 
years. The daily "home readings" indi- 
cated in connection with the lessons form in 
themselves an excellent Bible-reading course 
covering every day in the year. For most 
young people there is perhaps no better 
system of Scripture study than that which 
follows the order of the Sabbath-school 
course — the lessons, the home readings, the 
connecting portions, and the references. If 
this is closely and conscientiously followed, 
day after day and year after year, it will in 
the end yield a full, intelligent and systematic 
knowledge of the word that makes wise unto 
salvation. 

But, in whatever order the Bible may be 
read, let it surely be read. There are now so 
73 



In His Steps. 

many commentaries and other writings upon 
the Scriptures that we are in danger of read- 
ing a great deal about the Bible, while the 
book itself is neglected. It is important that 
we search the Scriptures themselves. Then 
each one should search for himself. It is 
not enough to take the golden findings that 
another has dug out: we must dig for 
ourselves. 

Above all, we must pray for light while we 
read, that we may discover the precious things 
which God has stored away in his word ; and 
we must pray for submission, that we may 
be able to yield our life to every influence 
of the truth ; and we must pray for faith, that 
we may be able to realize the invisible things 
of God which the holy word reveals, and get 
their support and their blessing for our soul. 



74 



CHAPTER IX. 

Helps : the Church and its Services. 

RESIDES the help received in private de- 
votion, every young Christian needs the 
aid which the public services of the church 
are designed to afford. We were not made 
to live alone. We lean upon and cling to 
each other " like trailing flowers that grow by 
interlacing." The necessities of our being 
require companionship. Mind grows and 
develops best in contact with other minds. 
One log will not burn alone. In a sense God 
himself is all we need^ and in communion 
with him every want of our soul is met : 

" Yea, through life, through death, through sorrow 
and through sinning, 
He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed." 

Yet the glory is so great, the splendor is so 
dazzling, that we need human hands to bring 
the divine blessing down to us. Besides, the 
heart does not rise to its highest fervor in the 
solitude of the closet. Our warmest feelings 
of devotion are drawn out when we unite 
75 



In His Steps. 

with others in associated service. The con- 
sciousness that a whole congregation of wor- 
shipers about us is moved by the same 
emotion that we experience, whether it be 
gratitude, confession of sin, or prayer for 
mercy, deepens the emotion in us. 

Then there are special promises to those 
who unite in the services of God's worship. 
In times of great defection particular mention 
was made by the prophet of those "who 
feared the Lord and spake often one to 
another." It was said that "the Lord heark- 
ened, and heard it, and a book of remem- 
brance was written before him." Jesus gave 
a special promise of answer to prayer when 
his people shall agree in asking, implying 
that, as added strands make the cable 
stronger, so added hearts make the supplica- 
tion more availing. He also gave a definite 
promise of his own presence where even two 
or three of his disciples shall meet together 
in his name. 

There is no doubt that there are blessings 
which we can obtain in the public worship, 
where many hearts mingle their homage and 
their prayers, which we cannot find in secret. 
Private devotion is indispensable and cannot 
be replaced by the public services ; yet, in 
addition to all the aid we can get in our 
religious life in secret prayer and Bible read- 
ing, we need, and cannot afford to neglect, 
76 



The Church and its Services. 

public worship. To do so is to deprive our- 
selves of one of the greatest helps in Chris- 
tian life. 

We can better understand the nature of the 
help we may receive from the church services 
if we have definite conceptions of the objects 
of public worship. 

One object is to honor God by bringing to 
him our heart's homage. This element of 
worship is one that needs to be strongly 
emphasized. Many persons have the impres- 
sion that the sermon is the most important — 
even the all-important — feature of the service. 
Too little is made of the devotional part. 
The error is a grave one. In the divine 
intention the primary object in public relig- 
ious service is to worship God, to bring to 
him our heart's love and adoration, our grati- 
tude and our confession, and to renew before 
him our personal consecration. 

Another object in the public service is 
instruction. The minister has been trained 
to be an expounder of the word of God. He 
has spent years in preparation for his work. 
He devotes the golden hours of every day to 
special study and thought, so as to be able 
each Sabbath to bring to his people and 
clearly and impressively put before them 
some important truth of Holy Scriptures. 
The people come to the church to be in- 
structed in things concerning God's character 
77 



In His Steps. 

and will and concerning their own needs and 
duties. 

A third object in the public service is spir- 
itual growth and culture. We learn about 
God's character, that we may adore and 
worship him more fervently ; about his will, 
that we may obey him more implicitly ; 
about his promises, that we may trust him 
more confidently ; about our duty, that we 
may do it more faithfully. The object of 
worship, also, so far as its influence upon 
ourselves is concerned, is the spiritual bless- 
ing and strength that come from communion 
with God and the opening of the heart in 
the warmth of his presence. 

These public services are designed, there- 
fore, and adapted to impart help to the 
sincere worshiper. No one can spend an 
hour in God's presence, looking up into his 
face and occupied with thoughts of him to 
the exclusion of worldly thoughts, and not 
experience a cleansing of heart and a kin- 
dling of soul which will prove a great enrich- 
ing of the life. All that is good in us receives 
quickening and new impulse in such an 
atmosphere ; all that is evil is checked and 
repressed. 

The influence of fellowship in worship 

with other Christians is also of great profit. 

We are lifted up on the tide of spiritual 

emotion. Our affections are purified. The 

78 



The Church and its Services. 

bonds of Christian love are strengthened. 
There is the benefit, also, derived from the 
instruction in God's word which we receive. 
Now we are warned against some danger ; 
now some sin in us is rebuked ; now it is 
a word of comfort which comes to cheer us 
in sorrow ; now it is a new thought about 
God, the unveiling to us of an attribute in 
his character, which draws out in us fresh 
adoration and love ; now it is a call to some 
neglected duty. 

Besides all these benefits, there is the 
renewal of spiritual strength which we find 
in the house of God : " They that wait upon 
the Lord shall renew their strength." Life 
wastes our vigor. Its duties and struggles 
exhaust us. The Sabbath services bring us 
again into communion with God, and the 
emptied pitchers are refilled. No one can 
spend an hour in God's house in true and 
sincere worship and not be better and 
stronger for it for many days. 

How to get from the church services the 
help they have to give to us is one of the 
most important practical questions in Chris- 
tian life. 

It is quite possible to attend these services, 
even with commendable regularity, and yet 
receive but little spiritual profit. There is 
no holy atmosphere in the house of God that 
is necessarily medicinal or tonic to our soul. 
79 



In His Steps. 

There is no filtration of grace into our life 
that goes on without agency of our own 
while we sit with shut heart in our soft pew in 
the sanctuary and dream through a service. 
Forms of worship, whether plain or elaborate, 
are empty without the sincere homage and 
faith of a loving heart. They carry up to 
God just what we put into them ; they bring 
to us from God just what with prayer and 
faith we draw out of them. 

Two persons may sit side by side and take 
part outwardly in the exercises of devotion, 
yet from one there will rise to God pure 
incense and an acceptable offering, and from 
the other the empty mockery of a heartless 
and formal service ; the one worshiper goes 
away strengthened and blessed, and the 
other carries away nothing but an empty 
hand and a cold, unblest heart. Whatever 
the forms of public service may be, the heart 
must be truly engaged or the worship will be 
vain and unprofitable. 

To make this chapter as helpful as possible 
to young Christians, a few definite practical 
suggestions are offered. 

To begin with, thoughtful preparation for 
church services will greatly increase their 
profitableness to those who engage in them. 
The very best ordinary preparation is a 
season of private devotion before going to 
the house of God. The heart is thus cleansed 
80 



The Church and its Services. 

of its worldly thoughts, is opened and warmed 
toward God, and is in a suitable condition to 
enter earnestly and reverently into the acts 
of public worship. 

A reverent approach toward and entrance 
into God's house are further aids to blessing 
in the services. We should at least re- 
member that we are going to meet God, and 
should know and consider well on what 
errand we are going — to worship him and 
receive help for our own life, if we have any 
real errand at all — and should have our 
expectations aroused in anticipation of com- 
munion with God and his people, and our 
heart eager with desire for the holy meeting. 

Many persons enter God's house with as 
little thoughtfulness and seriousness as if it 
were a concert or a literary entertainment 
they had come to hear. Such persons are 
not prepared either to render acceptable 
worship or to receive needed help in the 
service. We shall find in God's house and 
in his ordinances just what we are spiritually 
prepared to find. God must be in the heart, 
or we shall not see God in the exercises of 
worship. We shall never find in the sanc- 
tuary that which we do not seek and want to 
find. If we enter careless and indifferent, 
with no spirit of devotion, we shall carry 
away no blessing. If we come with longing 
and earnest desire to meet God and lay our 
6 81 



In His Steps. 

burdens at his feet, to rest and refresh our- 
selves in his presence, and to receive new 
strength from him for duty, we shall find all 
we wish. 

Another condition of help is earnest per- 
sonal interest in each part of the service. 
There is no blessing in our being merely 
among true worshipers and in the presence 
of God. A throng was close about Jesus one 
day, but one only of them all was healed ; 
she was healed because she reached out her 
trembling finger and in faith touched the hem 
of Christ's garment. The multitude thronged, 
but only one touched him. This history may 
be repeated any Sabbath in any congrega- 
tion. While many crowd close about Christ, 
only those will receive blessing who touch 
the hem of his robe. 

Even in public services we do not worship 
in companies, but as individuals. One sitting 
close beside us may hold delightful commu- 
nion with God and receive rich spiritual 
refreshment, while our heart remains like a 
dry, parched field; in the midst of the 
showers, yet receiving not one drop of rain 
from the full, overhanging clouds. No matter 
what others may or may not do or receive, 
our business in God's house is personal. 
There is blessing there for us if we will take 
it. Suppose the minister is a little dull and 
the service a little wearisome ; yet is not Goct 
82 



The Church and its Services. 

present ? The blessing is not in the minister 
nor in the service, but in God himself, who is 
ready always to dispense to the tired and the 
hungry the rest and the bread they crave. 

Then, after the service, we should go away 
thoughtfully and reverently as we came. 
The custom which prevails in some churches 
of lingering a moment in silent prayer after 
the benediction is very beautiful and impres- 
sive. Let the last minute be spent looking 
into God's face for a parting benediction. 

Church-aisle sociability, so often com- 
mended, no doubt has its pleasant side, but 
it certainly has its disadvantages and its 
grave dangers. We may without spiritual 
harm greet one another cordially and affec- 
tionately in quiet tones as we pass out, but 
too often the conversation runs either into 
criticism of the preacher and the sermon, or 
off on trivial and worldly themes. The con- 
sequence is, that the good seed sown is 
picked up and devoured by the birds before 
it has had time to root. We would better go 
away, quietly pondering the great thoughts 
which the service has suggested to us, seek- 
ing to deepen in our heart the impressions 
made and to assimilate in our life the truths 
of God's word which have fallen upon our 
ears. 

From the church gate back again to the 
closet whence we set out is the best walk to 
83 



In His Steps. 

take after the service has closed. A few 
moments of secret prayer will carry the bless- 
ings of the sanctuary so deep into our hearts 
that thereafter they will be part of our very 
life. 

A special word may fitly be spoken of the 
Lord's Supper and of the way in which we 
can get help from it. In the minds of many 
people a great deal of unnecessary mystery 
hangs about this ordinance. That which sets 
it apart from other services is that it is a 
memorial feast appointed by Christ himself, 
in which our thought and faith are helped 
by visible elements that represent to us the 
great spiritual facts of our redemption. 

The help this service gives is not different 
from that received from other ordinances, 
unless it be that the use of the visible sym- 
bols brings Christ and his sacrificial work 
more vividly before our dull eyes than where 
words only are used to picture the same 
truths. In this sense it is a greater aid to 
faith than a sermon or a hymn ; but, as in all 
worship, so in the communion, the blessing 
comes, not from the ordinance itself, but 
from Christ. 

How, then, can we get from the Lord's 
Supper the help it has to give ? Only by 
finding the way to Christ and submitting our 
heart to the tender influences of his love. 

The Lord's Supper is a memorial ; we 
84 



The Church and its Services. 

should remember Christ as we come to his 
table. It is a memorial especially of Christ's 
sufferings and death : we should recall his 
humiliation, his obedience, his agony, his 
crucifixion, and think of the love that led 
him voluntarily to make himself an offering 
for sin. But memories alone will not bless 
us, — there must be appropriating faith. 
"Broken for you" said the Master; "Broken 
for me" should be faith's answer. 

There should be in the heart of the sincere 
Christian no more dread in going to the 
Lord's Supper than in going to any other 
service. St. Paul's word "unworthily" — 
which has been misunderstood by so many 
— has reference entirely to the manner in 
which persons observe the ordinance, not to 
the persons themselves. 

The Corinthians to whom St. Paul was 
writing made it a common feast, with revel- 
ing — even with drunkenness. Of course, 
any one who would observe it in such a way, 
or any one who would sit at the table without 
really loving Christ, without believing on him, 
without truly worshiping him and submitting 
to him, or who would act irreverently or 
with levity, would be " guilty of the body 
and blood of the Lord." But in the apostle's 
word there is not the slightest allusion to 
those who feel themselves unworthy, yet who 
are sincere and true disciples of Christ. A 
85 



In His Steps. 

sense of personal unworthiness is part of all 
true faith in Christ. 

" Not worthy, Lord, to gather up the crumbs 
With trembling hand that from thy table fall, 
A weary, heavy-laden sinner comes 

To plead thy promise and obey thy call." 

If the heart be sincere, if the trust in Christ 
be true though trembling, and the obedience 
loyal though imperfect, we have the same 
right to come boldly to the Lord's Table as to 
prayer or any other ordinance. We can sin 
in any act of worship by formality, by insin- 
cerity, by levity, by want of heart, and we 
can sin in the same ways in receiving the 
Lord's Supper. In partaking of this sacred 
memorial feast we need to be sure only that 
we are truly in living union with Christ, that 
we are trusting him alone as our Saviour and 
following him faithfully as our Lord, and that 
we come to his table with a sincere desire to 
meet him and to seek blessing from him. 

The young Christian should never stay 
away from the Lord's Supper when it is 
celebrated in the church of which he is a 
member. If he is conscious of sin and 
failure, let him make humble confession and 
start anew. The Lord's Supper will help 
him to do this. We cannot afford to miss 
this ordinance. The weaker we are, and the 
more unworthy, the more do we need it. 
86 



The Church and its Services. 

Besides, it is in a peculiar sense a Christ- 
confessing ordinance : we take our place at 
his table, and thus witness to the world that 
we are his. His honor therefore demands 
that we should never absent ourselves when 
his people thus confess him. 

There are other church services which 
have their large possibilities of help for young 
Christians. Among these are weekly meet- 
ings for prayer. From Sabbath to Sabbath 
is a long stretch when the way is hard, when 
distractions are many, and when the battles 
are sore. The prayer meeting is a little oasis, 
midway. It is a place specially for the re- 
freshment of Christians. Every young disciple 
should put it down among his positive weekly 
engagements. We cannot afford to miss it 
if we are at all earnest in our desire to be 
strong and noble Christians. 

The Sabbath-school is another of the 
church services which no young Christian 
should miss. It is not for children only : it 
ought to be a Bible school for the whole 
church, with its classes of young men and 
young women, and of old people with dim 
eyes and gray heads. It is on God's word 
that we all need to feed more and more. It 
will make us strong. It will lead us in right 
paths. It will beautify our character. It 
will put into our hand the sword of the 
Spirit for battle with temptation. It will pre- 
87 



In His Steps. 

pare a pillow for our head in sickness and 
sorrow. It will at the last guide us through 
the valley of the shadow of death. 

In most churches there is a Christian 
Endeavor or other young people's society. 
This is really a training school for young 
Christians. They have an opportunity of 
learning to take part in church services. 
They can begin here in a very humble and 
easy way and in a sympathetic atmosphere, 
and by practice can overcome their natural 
timidity, until at last they can rise and speak 
with freedom in any meeting. It is well for 
many young Christians to unite with a young 
people's society for the sake of the training 
they will receive, not only in the prayer 
meetings, but also in the work of the society. 

We need the church services. We can- 
not neglect them and not suffer harm and 
loss. Whenever the church bell summons 
us to the house of God, we should gladly 
respond. We should become church-goers 
by habit. We should reverently enter the 
gates of the sanctuary. We should worship 
God in sincerity and in truth. We should 
come away thoughtfully and with prayer. 

Then in the busy days which follow will 
come the proofs of the helpfulness and bless- 
ing that our lives have found in the services. 
The food that is eaten to-day is the strength 
of the laborer, the eloquence of the orator, 



The Church and its Services. 

the skill of the artisan, to-morrow. The 
spring sunshine and rain that fall upon the 
dry, briery rose bush reappear in due time in 
fragrant, lovely roses. And sincere and true 
worship in the quiet of the sanctuary will 
show itself in the beautiful character, the 
sweetened spirit, the brightened hope, the 
truer, better living and the holier consecra- 
tion of the days of toil and struggle that 
come after. 



89 



CHAPTER X. 

Some of the Duties. 

IT is a high attainment to be a good church 
member. One must first be a good Chris- 
tian. Without this, church membership counts 
for nothing in the life of the person. We must 
always put first things first. We must join 
Christ before we join the church. Church 
membership will not save us. 

But when we have taken Jesus Christ as 
our Saviour and Lord, and have consecrated 
our life to him, the next privilege we enjoy is 
that of uniting with his church. This in- 
volves duties which the young Christian 
should be ready to perform and responsibil- 
ities which he should humbly accept. 

One of these is a continuous and consist- 
ent confession of Christ. We speak of 
uniting with the church as confessing Christ. 
It is a sacred moment when a company of 
young people stand up in the presence of 
their friends and make their first public con- 
fession of Christ. Then they sit down at the 
Lord's Table, and receive their first Holy 
90 



Some of the Duties. 

Communion. They have now confessed 
Christ before men. Their act is very beauti- 
ful. The Master, looking on this band of 
young Christians in these moments of their 
solemn commitment of themselves to him, is 
pleased with their consecration and with their 
promise to be his and to follow him fully and 
forever. 

This is a confession of Christ, but it is not 
all of the confession ; it is only the begin- 
ning of it. Those who have made this public 
avowal, have thus set themselves apart for 
God. They are not their own. They have 
taken a new master. Their confession of 
Christ henceforth should be continuous. " If 
ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my 
disciples," said Jesus to beginners. Indeed 
it is the life of the common days among men 
that tests the reality and sincerity of the first 
confession. It is easy to stand up in the 
midst of a company of Christians, all sympa- 
thetic and friendly, and say, " I am a Chris- 
tian ; " it is not so easy, however, on the 
play ground, in the office, in the social 
gathering, in the place of business, in the 
presence of those who are unsympathetic 
and unfriendly, to say, " I am a follower of 
Christ." Yet this is what is expected and 
required of those who have declared them- 
selves Christians. 

The daily confession need not be made 
91 



In His Steps. 

always in words, but it is to be made in the 
life. Those who belong to Christ must walk 
worthy of their Master. Their conduct, 
wherever they go, must be such as will please 
him and meet with his approval. They 
must do nothing and say nothing that will 
bring dishonor on the name they bear. 
They represent Christ in the world — "As the 
Father hath sent me, even so send I you," 
he said to his first disciples. 

A young girl when received into the church 
was asked what it would be for her to be a 
Christian. She replied, " I suppose it will be 
to do what Jesus would do and behave as 
Jesus would behave, if he were a little girl 
and lived at our house." No better answer 
could have been given. One of our duties 
as church members is to do what Jesus would 
do and to behave as he would behave if he 
were precisely in our place and our circum- 
stances. We carry in our life not only the 
honor of the church but the honor of Christ, 
and we should never fail. 

There are important and specific duties 
which every member owes to his church. 
Some of these have already been indicated 
in another chapter of this book. One word, 
faithfulness, will cover them all. We often 
speak of persons belonging to the church. 
The phrase is very suggestive. If we belong 
to the church, we owe it our best love, our 
92 



Some of the Duties. 

best life, our best service, our best influence 
and help. 

Nothing but the will of God should keep 
us away from the meetings of the church. 
Then, being present at the services is not 
enough. We should earnestly and heartily 
participate in these services. Very chilling is 
the influence of those worshipers who sit in 
indifferent silence while joyous hymns are 
being sung, who keep their eyes wide open 
and are busy gazing over the house during 
the prayers, who pay no heed to Scripture 
lesson or sermon, and who take no interest 
whatever in any of the parts of worship. 
The ideal church member will be earnest 
and fervent in his devotions and deeply in- 
terested in all the services. Enthusiasm is 
contagious, and the influence of one warm- 
hearted worshiper upon others in a congre- 
gation is very great. 

The social life of a church is important. 
There are churches which have the reputa- 
tion of being cold, unsocial, unsympathetic. 
Strangers come and go, but find no warmth, 
no human interest, no kindly welcome. No 
one offers them a friendly hand. Then there 
are churches which are known as sociable, 
where strangers receive hearty greeting and 
are made to feel at home. The atmosphere 
of the meetings is full of cordiality and hos- 
pitality. 

93 



In His Steps. 

One of the duties of church membership, 
therefore, is to exercise the spirit of love 
toward all fellow members and toward all 
who enter the church. Jesus said that all 
men should know his disciples by their love 
one for another. This was wonderfully true 
of the first Christians, after the day of Pente- 
cost. They had all things in common. The 
rich shared with the poor. The strong helped 
the weak. The world had never seen such 
love before — there had never before been 
such love. " Behold how these Christians 
love one another!" heathen men said in 
their wonder. 

So should it be in every Christian church. 
The members should live together as one 
family. When one is glad all should rejoice. 
When one is in sorrow all should be touched 
with the feeling of grief. They should bear 
one another's burdens. Such a church is a 
true home for souls. The weary, the tempted, 
the baffled, the defeated, the sorrowing, the 
friendless, turn to it with hunger and yearn- 
ing, as they would turn to Christ himself if 
he were here. 

Every member should do his part to make 
his church such a Christly refuge. One 
brusque, unsocial person may greatly hinder 
the prevalence of the spirit of love and 
hospitality in a church. It takes the hearty 
help of every one to make a church at all 
94 



Some of the Duties. 

points and to all who come within its doors, 
a place of cordial, hospitable love. 

It is not necessary to go into further detail 
as to the particular duties of church members. 
They owe their church generous support, and 
every young Christian should begin at once 
to do his part in giving. The church boards 
are organized for the purpose of receiving 
money for the specific objects which they 
represent and then of carrying on the branch 
of work that belongs to them. Every church 
member's privilege is to help these various 
approved causes as he may be able to do, as 
God prospers him. 

Every well-organized church has its depart- 
ments, with its societies, bands and guilds, its 
Sabbath school, its young people's meetings, 
its work among the poor. No one need 
lack the opportunity to do something — there 
is a place for every grade of ministry and 
every kind of service. Even the youngest 
member can find something to do and a 
chance to be trained for larger work in years 
of more strength and experience. 

It is not easy to be a good church member 
— it is not easy to be useful and helpful any- 
where. It requires the denial, the oblitera- 
tion, of self. If we are in the church to be 
served, to receive attention, to be helped, to 
get promotion, to seek office, to reap benefit 
in any way for ourselves, we shall fail of the 
95 



In His Steps. 

blessing and good we might receive. The 
true spirit seeks, like the Master, not to be 
ministered unto but to minister. 

This means that we must be ready always 
to give up our own convenience in order to 
do a kindness to another, to deny ourselves 
in any matter, that we may relieve or assist 
one who needs our help. It means that we 
must have patience with the weak and the 
stumbling, and be ready always to help a 
" fainting robin back unto his nest again." 
It costs to be such a church member, but no 
price is too great to pay for the privilege of 
filling well such an honored place in the 
kingdom of our Master. 

We need not fear about reward. Such 
love always yields its own reward. The 
reward for good serving is more serving, 
more unselfish serving. We need not hope 
for ease as reward for sacrifice, nor for a time 
of self-indulgence after our time of self- 
denial. But the opportunity to do more and 
greater good is always the best compensation 
for any good we may have done. 

True, there is heaven at the end — but 
neither will heaven be a place of ease and 
rest ; it too will be a place of service. " God 
will give each of us a star for a workshop by 
and by," but still the life will be all love, and 
love always serves. ^ 



9 6 



CHAPTER XI. 
Growing in One's Place: Providence. 

MANY people imagine that they could live 
very much better if their circumstances 
were different. In their failure to live a 
noble and worthy life they find comfort in 
laying the blame on some infelicity or hard- 
ness in their lot. 

This is very foolish. For one thing, it 
does no good. Blaming circumstances will 
not change them. After all, they are our 
circumstances, and we must live out our life 
in the midst of them. Besides, God in his 
providence has put us just where we find our- 
selves, and unless we claim to be wiser than 
God, we must conclude that we are in the 
right place — at least, that it is quite possible 
for us to live a true Christian life where we 
are. 

11 Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident : 
It is the very place God meant for thee ; 
And shouldst thou there small scope for action 

see, 
Do not for this give room to discontent, 
Nor let the time thou owest to God be spent 
In idly dreaming how thou mightest be." 

7 97 



In His Steps. 

God does not choose for us the place 
where we can have the most pleasant time, 
with the least friction and the fewest weights 
and encumbrances. Life on the earth is a 
school, and he puts us where we shall receive 
the best training. The easier place might 
be more comfortable, but the harder place 
does the more for us — makes the more out 
of us. 

Some people think that if they could get 
away from others and live alone they would 
be better Christians. Men irritate them, 
tempt them, stir up the evil that is in them, 
excite them. But men do not grow best in 
solitude and apart from others. The good- 
ness that is good only because there is no 
friction, no provocation, nothing to try it, is 
scarcely worth the name. Life needs life to 
school it and develop it. 

The old monks were wrong in their idea of 
Christian living when they supposed that they 
could reach a higher state of holiness by 
withdrawing from men and dwelling alone. 
God's plan is to set the solitary in families 
rather than to separate families into solitari- 
ness. We all need to be sometimes alone. 
There should be hours when we enter into 
our closet and shut the door, that we may 
look in upon our own heart and hold com- 
munion with God ; but the closet is not to be ; 
our abiding place. 

9 3 



Growing in One's Place. 

" Hark, hark ! a voice amid the quiet intense ! 

It is thy duty waiting thee without. 

Rise from thy knees in hope, the half of doubt; 
A hand doth pull thee : it is Providence : 
Open thy door straightway and get thee hence ; 

Go forth into the tumult and the shout ; 

Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about. 
Of noise alone is born the inward sense 
Of silence, and from action springs alone 
The inward knowledge of true love and faith." 

We owe duties to others. To live only for 
one's self, though the aspiration be purely for 
holiness, is contrary to the spirit of true dis- 
cipleship. Our duties to others are as mani- 
fold and as diversified as the varying phases 
and conditions of life's reciprocal relations. 
We are debtors to all men, far and near. 
God wants us on the earth to fulfill these 
duties. We are to serve him not by pure 
devotion apart from men, but in relations. 
Those who leave society and flee to the 
cloister simply run away from their chief 
mission. We are not left in this world after 
conversion merely to pray and praise ; God 
wants us to be useful, to do his work, to run 
his errands, to help his needy, suffering ones, 
to train children for his service, to fight his 
battles. 

11 What are we set on earth for? Say to toil, 
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines 
For all the heat o' the day till it declines, 
And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil 
To wrestle, not to reign. . . . 

99 



In His Steps. 

So others shall 
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand 
From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave 

cheer, 
And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 
The least flower with a brimming cup may stand 
And share its dewdrop with another near." 

Nor is it alone for the sake of others that 
God has appointed us to live out our life 
among men rather than apart and alone ; it 
is for our own sake as well. We grow best 
amid other lives. People are means of 
grace to us. It may seem to us that if we 
could get away from society we should escape 
many temptations and be able to live nearer 
to God. But we would then miss the blessing 
which comes from struggle and victory. 
Heaven and its honors are for "him that 
overcometh." Not to enter the struggle is 
to fail of the white robe and palm of the 
victor. The best things in life are not found 
along flowery walks, but in the fields of con- 
flict. There are qualities in us that can be 
developed only in struggle. To find easy 
places away from the strife of battle is to lose 
the discipline that makes grand character. 

We grow best under the pressure of duty, 
where we are compelled to think of others 
and serve them. There are those who 
imagine that if they could get away from 
men and from absorbing contacts with other 
lives they could live better. They could then 



Growing in One's Place. 

enjoy unbroken communion with God. But 
this is not the divine ordinance for a human 
life. Love to God does not stand alone as 
life's single duty ; love to man is always 
joined with it, and the two duties are so inter- 
twined that neither can be performed without 
the other. We cannot love God and not love 
our fellowmen ; we cannot serve God and 
not serve our brother. 

Sometimes we imagine that if we could get 
away from business cares, household burdens, 
and social obligations, we could be better 
Christians. It seems to us that these duties 
are not favorable to spiritual culture, and that 
we could be holier and could live more as 
Christ lived if we were freed from their 
exacting and absorbing claims. But this is a 
mistake. It is in the doing of these common 
duties that our powers are best developed. 
God puts the new life into our heart, but we 
must work it out into strength and beauty, 
and there is no way to do this but by exercise. 
If we would develop the love of our heart, 
we must love people ; the sentiment must 
take practical form ; the seed germ must be 
cultivated ; and for this no mere cloister 
culture will do. If we would learn patience, 
there is no school but in experiences that 
require us to exercise patience. 

Jesus said that rank among his disciples is 
won by serving, that he who serves most is 

IOI 



In His Steps. 

chief: we can gain this spiritual eminence 
only by filling our place in the midst of 
human needs and sufferings, where contin- 
ually the pressure is upon us, calling for 
service. The serving must be real serving 
of actual living people; no fine sentiment 
alone will exalt us. Good feelings and dis- 
positions, of whatever kind, can become 
part of the fiber of life only when they are 
wrought out in experience. Spiritual graces 
cannot be cultivated in the abstract. Char- 
acter is more than sentiment : it is sentiment 
incarnated, grown into life and reality. 

Instead therefore of being hindrances to 
the development of our Christian life and 
character, our relative duties are in the largest 
measure helpful. To tear ourselves out of 
our place among men in order to get rid of 
these duties would be to leave whole fields 
of our nature uncultivated and many of the 
richest possibilities of our regenerated life 
undeveloped. The common duties that the 
daily round brings to our hand, although 
they may seem to be far from spiritual in 
their influence, and may seem to draw us off 
from communion with God by keeping us 
absorbed in and occupied with earthly tasks, 
are to us really not hindrances, but rich 
means of grace. We grow best Godward 
when we are serving best manward, in 
Christ's name and for his sake. 



Growing in One's Place. 

Therefore, in the cultivation of the Chris- 
tian life, we can do nothing better than attend 
with fidelity and diligence to the duties that 
belong to us in our varied relations. The 
head of a family should take up promptly, as 
the first biddings of his new Master, his duties 
as a husband and father, performing them 
with new faithfulness and tenderness and with 
the new motive in his heart of love to Christ. 
On becoming a Christian a child in the home 
should accept as the "Father's business" 
for him at present his duties of obedience 
and honor to his earthly father and mother. 
The will of God for brothers and sisters 
beginning to follow Christ is to render to 
each other all the sweet and helpful ser- 
vice of patient, unselfish love that belongs 
to their sacred relationship. 

We are called to walk with God, but not 
ordinarily by withdrawing from among men. 
We are to walk with God in the place to 
which he has assigned us. We are called 
to be holy, but holiness is not some vague, 
nebulous thing, some abstract condition of 
soul attained apart from common practical 
life. Holiness is obedience to duty, and no 
one can be holy and neglect the service to 
his fellow men which his relationships im- 
pose upon him. 



103 



CHAPTER XII. 

Preparation for Trial. 

'TRIAL lies somewhere in every one's path. 
To the young it may seem far off, and 
even thinking of it may be unwelcome. 
11 Why should we stain the blue of our skies," 
they ask, " with anticipations of trouble that 
may not come for years ?" We are specially 
commanded by our Lord himself not to take 
anxious thought for any to-morrow. The 
true rule of a life of trust is to live by the 
day. 

" Make a little fence of trust 

Around to-day ; 
Fill the space with loving works, 

And therein stay ; 
Look not through the sheltering bars 

Upon to-morrow : 
God will help thee bear what comes, 

If joy or sorrow." 

Yet there is a sense in which even in their 
happiest days the young should anticipate 
trial. The man whose garners have been 
filled from this year's golden harvest should 
not be anxious about next year's bread, but 
104 



Preparation for Trial. 

he must forecast his future wants by sowing 
in time to have another harvest. We need 
not sadden our days of joy by anticipations 
of coming sorrow, but we ought, even in our 
sunniest hours, to be preparing for the times 
of gloom, so as to be in readiness for them 
when they come. We ought in our plenty 
years to store away provision to feed upon 
in the famine years that will follow. We 
ought in the glad springtime, amid plenty, 
to sow the seeds whose fruit we shall need 
in the dreary autumn. In the pleasant 
summer days, when we have no need for 
fuel, we ought to gather the wood which by 
and by we shall want for our winter fires. 

The attendants went through the train at 
midday and lighted the lamps in the cars. 
It seemed a strange and altogether useless 
thing to do, and many facetious remarks 
regarding it were made by the passengers. 
But soon the train rushed into a long, dark 
tunnel, and then the lighting of the lamps 
appeared no longer either a strange or a 
useless thing; nor was their light despised. 
It may seem idle and unnecessary now to 
the young and joyous to hang up lamps of 
comfort in their hearts, while the sun of 
earthly blessing shines brightly upon them 
and while their path lies amid the flowers and 
through smiling valleys ; but there are dark 
places farther on, unseen as yet — unsuspected 
105 



In His Steps. 

even — into which they may plunge suddenly 
without time or opportunity to find the lamps 
of comfort and light them, and in which they 
will be left in utter darkness if they have 
made no provision in advance. But if, while 
they moved along in the brightness, they 
have wisely prepared for the dark passage, 
then the lamps will pour their grateful light 
about them and cheer the gloom. 

There is a wide difference between being 
anxious about coming troubles and being 
prepared beforehand for troubles that may 
come. The former is a sin ; the latter is a 
duty. Those only can truly live in quiet 
peace, without anxiety, who have already 
made preparation for anything that may come 
to them. No one can find real pleasure on 
the sea in the calmest weather who is not 
confident that the ship on which he is carried 
has been built and rigged for the fiercest 
tempest that may arise. No one can enjoy 
life in the fullest measure who is not prepared 
for sudden death. And no one can get the 
best out of joy and gladness who has not 
made provision for sorrow. 

What preparation can we make in advance 
for trial ? For one thing, there are certain 
great foundation truths which, if firmly laid 
in our minds, will prove abiding sources of 
comfort in any trial that may come. One is 
the Christian doctrine of providence. There 
1 06 



Preparation for Trial. 

is no chance in this universe; there are no 
accidents. God's government extends to 
"all his creatures and all their actions." 

" Know well, my soul, God's hand controls 

Whate'er thou fearest ; 
Round him in calmest music rolls 

Whate'er thou hearest. 
What to thee is shadow to him is day, 

And the end heknoweth, 
And not on a blind and aimless way 

The spirit goeth." 

So personal and minute is God's care that 
amid all the vast and complicated affairs of 
the universe not one of us is overlooked or 
forgotten, nor are the smallest interests of 
the least and humblest of us allowed to 
suffer. 

The firm fixing in our minds of this great 
truth prepares us to receive without doubt or 
alarm whatever God may send, and sweetly 
and trustfully to submit to his will. 

Preparation may also be made in times of 
joy and gladness for the days of trial, by fill- 
ing our hearts with the truths of the Scrip- 
tures. The wise virgins were not left in 
darkness when their lamps had burned out, 
because they had a reserve of oil in their 
vessels. If we have a store of divine prom- 
ises and consolations hidden in our heart 
during the sunny days, we shall never be left 
in darkness, however suddenly the shadow 
107 



In His Steps. 

may fall upon us. Words of Scripture in 
which we have never before seen any special 
comfort will then shine out with bright luster, 
like stars when the sun has gone down, pour- 
ing heavenly light into our souls. God will 
then speak to us in his own words, and we 
shall hear his voice of love and be cheered 
and strengthened by the assurances he gives. 
We shall find among the treasured comforts 
the very help we need — a staff to support us 
in the rough path, a lamp to lighten the bit 
of dark road, an arm to lean upon if we are 
weak and faint, a hand to guide if we do not 
know where to go, a word of hope if we are 
cast down, a bosom to rest upon if we are 
weary and crushed, a balm of healing if our 
hearts are wounded or broken. 

There is consolation in the Bible for every 
possible experience of sorrow ; and if we but 
have the divine words laid up in our heart, 
we shall find them as we need them, and 
they will sweeten our Marahs for us. They 
will come to our aid at the right moment, 
and will prove God's very angels to us with 
their light and their help. 

" When the sun withdraws his light, 
Lo ! the stars of God are there* ; 
Present hosts unseen till night — 
Matchless, countless, silent, fair." 

The same is true of preparation for meet- 
108 



Preparation for Trial. 

ing temptation. This is best made by storing 
the heart with the commands and promises 
of God's word, which may be brought out in 
the hour of need and made available for 
defense. When our Lord was tempted, he 
made use of the words of divine truth in 
resisting the tempter. If we would meet and 
overcome temptations, we must follow the 
example of our Master. But to do this we 
must have the Scripture words hidden in our 
heart, ready for use at any moment of need 
or danger. Our Lord did not open his 
parchment roll at that moment, find, and then 
read, the divine sentences which drove the 
tempter away. He had pondered the holy 
book in the quiet days before the enemy 
tried him, and had its words stored in his 
heart, ready for instant use when the hour 
of need came. 

In Holman Hunt's great picture "The 
Shadow of Death," which represents Jesus as 
a young man in the carpenter's shop stretch- 
ing himself at the close of a weary day, and 
with his outspread arms making the shadow 
of a cross on the wall, there is a minor feature 
that is full of suggestion. On a shelf is a 
collection of books in the form of rolls, such 
as were in use in those days. They represent 
the library Jesus used — the books of the Holy 
Scriptures. They are there in the shop where 
he worked, suggesting that in his leisure 
109 



In His Steps. 

moments he turned to them to ponder their 
great truths and store away their principles 
in his memory and in his heart. No doubt 
the picture truly represents the daily habit 
of his life in those quiet years when he was 
preparing for his great public work. Thus it 
was that when the tempter came there was 
no need for feverish haste in preparing for 
defense. The weapons were ready, and the 
victory was easy. 

From this example of Jesus we should 
learn to prepare in advance for temptation 
by filling our hearts in the days of youth and 
early life with the truths of God's word. The 
soldier cannot learn the art of war when the 
battle is upon him ; if he is not already 
trained he can only suffer defeat. When the 
tempter has come, there will be no time to 
search out texts with which to ward off his 
blows ; but if we have the sacred words 
treasured in our heart, it will be easy to 
draw them forth, as arrows from a quiver, 
for use at any moment of danger. 

Another preparation for trial is a close walk 
with God. Nothing adds more to the bitter- 
ness of any grief than the memory of a 
careless or a sinful life ; while nothing allevi- 
ates the pain of affliction so much as the 
remembrance of faithfulness in duty and the 
consciousness of divine approval. If our 
habitual daily life has been near to God, we 



Preparation for Trial. 

have no trouble in rinding God when in some 
sore stress we greatly need him ; but if we 
have been living far from God in the bright 
days, neglecting our devotions and our duties, 
it takes a long time, when trial comes, to get 
into such close fellowship with God that we 
can receive the tender personal comforts 
which he imparts to those who in intimate 
friendship lean upon his breast. 

Our habitual treatment of our friends in 
the season of unbroken fellowship has very 
much to do with the comfort we shall get 
when we are called to mourn the loss of 
these friends. If we have been unkind, 
selfish, thoughtless, or harsh ; if we have 
failed in any duty to them ; if we have caused 
them pain or trouble ; if we have wronged 
or injured them in any way, — no fullness and 
richness of divine comfort will altogether 
take away the pang from our heart when we 
stand by the cold clay and it is too late to 
ask or to receive forgiveness. But if we 
have been faithful and true to our friends in 
all ways ; if we have been thoughtful and 
kind ; if we have let our love flow out in fond 
expression and unselfish ministry, — when 
they leave us our sorrow at the loss may be 
no less sore, but it will have no bitterness in 
it. Loyal and tender friendship is a prepara- 
tion for sorrow ; its memory is a sweetener 
of bereavement. 



In His Steps. 

To all of us sorrow will come in some form 
or other. But we may so lay up in store the 
resources of comfort that in whatever way it 
may come, in whatever measure or however 
suddenly, we shall not be crushed by it, but 
shall welcome it as God's angel and receive 
the message our Father sends to us in it and 
the benediction it brings to us from heaven. 

" Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
God's messenger sent down to thee. 

Do thou 
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow, 
And ere his shadow cross thy threshold, crave 
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave." 

In God's plan for each life one step is 
always designed to prepare for the next. 
One day's faithfulness lifts up to the next 
day's duty and fits for the next day's trial. 
Faithfulness — simple faithfulness — each hour, 
each moment, is all that is necessary to pre- 
pare for any future. Then, at the end, such 
a life will stand approved and complete, 
ready for the crowning, at the feet of Him 
who is Redeemer, Lord, Pattern, Helper, and 
Friend. 



112 



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